The Physics of Maths
From my favourite flea market two weeks ago, I bought a book by a Louisa Pesel, which
portrays in exquisite, hand drawn detail, some of the collection of embroideries held by the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was very cheap, and old, two of my main criteria for purchase. On leafing through, my interest quickened as the potential for translating these works into knitted textile rather than embroidered became apparent. As an example, take this:
In the upper left hand corner there is a depiction of the stitch structure used to embroider this particular English border, with, directly underneath, an example from a different culture , either of which might be the inspiration for the other.
I was particularly drawn to this because of some knitted stitch structures with which i have recently made a piece. It occurred to me that, while on paper in drawn form - the maths - my schema for what I would knit looks almost indistinguishable from the depiction above. The finished structure, however - the physics - is entirely different, largely because one (the embroidery) is an application to another surface, producing in this instance a fairly stiff, doubly thick item. The knitted piece, while following the same pattern of blocks and gaps,would be self-supporting and fluid, malleable where the embroidery is not, and able to change shape according to that which lies beneath.
I use the conditional here because it is my intention to knit that top left hand notation over the next couple of days, and see whether my money goes where my mouth is. I should add that this, as far as I am concerned, does not come under the umbrella of 'mathematical knitting', which is a very different exciting thing about which I have been reading, and will be attempting, but with my needles rather than my machine. A bientot.
