Tour Stop Day 28: Translating a Spirograph into Crochet

Welcome Crochet Country Tourists!
Thank you for stopping by today! I hope you've been following and enjoying this blog tour as much as I have! I want to thank Amy Shelton and Donna Hulka of Crochetville for hosting this tour and having me be part of it, and also I give thanks to CGOA. Both organizations have been an essential part of my life as a crocheter, and as a burgeoning crocheter professional.

Reunited at Professional Development Day

I'm saving my best for last thank you to Kathryn White. It's no coincidence that we share today on the blog tour. She has been my inspiration to become a designer ever since I met her almost 10 years ago. Recently she became my mentor through the CGOA. We were able to reconnect at the Greensboro conference in 2011 after many years and both of us moving away from our home state of Washington.

I'm a fairly new crochet designer who loves to work with size 20 thread in all sorts of colors. Two of my designs are scheduled to be published this June, one of which is Split Infinitive which placed 2nd in the Artistic Expressions category at the 2011 CGOA Design Competition.

I'd like to share two things with you today:

First, the debut of Basanti, my new mehndi (henna tattoo art) inspired barefoot sandal design and pattern! It's my second mehndi inspired design of which I plan to create more. When spring arrives--which I'm hoping is soon--Basanti will be the perfect foot accessory to wear! The pattern is available at my Ravelry store.

New Design:
Basanti Barefoot Sandal

Second, as the post title states: translating a spirograph into crochet.

Before I got started in designing I crocheted lots and lots of doilies. About three years ago a friend mentioned that the doilies I crocheted looked like mandalas. Something clicked in my head and I began looking at images of circular forms of art ranging from mandalas, folk art, mehndi, painted plates and spirographs.

What's a Spirograph?
If you are of a particular age group or into low-tech toys you are probably aware of a toy called Spirograph™. I remembering not being very talented with using it.

What I didn't know about spirographs until many years later was that there is hidden math to the designs. The technical terms for most spirograph designs are hypotrochoid and epitrochoid.

Hidden math of the spirograph

As a kid in school I remember watching a film called Donald in Mathmagic Land. The Disney cartoon demonstrated all sorts of hidden math that could be found in art, music, the human body and billiards. I'm not a math person by any stretch of the imagination, yet when math was presented in the manner like in the film, I understood it. I always wished my teachers would teach math in a similar way.

Something Gets Lost in Translation
The mathematical expressions for the spirograph seem pretty daunting:

x(t)=(R+r)cos(t) + p*cos((R+r)t/r)
y(t)=(R+r)sin(t) + p*sin((R+r)t/r)

How can that be translated into crochet? That's a trick question because all that is needed to translate the spirograph into crochet is the basic math for a crocheted circle. (Of course there's a bit more to it as you'll see when the pattern is published this June.) All of that math gets lost in the translation to crochet because it's not needed to create the appearance of a spirograph. 

Pattern for Split Infinitive is scheduled to be published in June

You might remember on PBS the show The Joy of Painting hosted by artist Bob Ross. (Happy clouds!) I was amazed how he could paint an image with what appeared to be nonsensical and haphazard brush strokes. My artistic perception was awakened by his use of illusion. I saw images and art in a whole new way. Eventually my artistic perception and knowledge of crochet coalesced and Split Infinitive was the result!

Play with Online Spirographs & Get Inspired!
Now that you know there isn't any complicated math to crocheting a spirograph, see if you might find some inspiration in creating some spirographs from these online tools:

Spiromath

JW's Spirograph Application

Spirograph javascript

The Tour Continues

March 29	Amy Shelton	Donna Hulka
March 30	Linda Dean	Kristin Dragos
March 31	Karen C K Ballard	Gwen Blakley-Kinsler

It's Pi Day! (And how it relates to crochet)

Celebrate Pi!

I ♥ Pi!
As a thread crocheter who loves to make doilies and design in the round, I've come to love pi! I'm not a math person by any stretch of the imagination. If I have to do mental math I'm always off by a factor of 10. Designers all know that eventually it all gets back to the math when working a design.

Stitches per Diameter Inch (SPDI)
I was having a struggle with my very first design until I realized a very important equation concerning pi would help me tremendously. I call it stitches per diameter inch (SPDI), and is probably called by some other terms among other crochet designers and knitters.

To discover what your SPDI value is, work up a circle of dc stitches to 1" in diameter. Count the number of stitches. Example: On a size 1.25 mm hook with size 20 Lizbeth thread, 36 stitches = 1" diameter. Thus, my SPDI is 36 stitches. If I wanted to make a doily that is approximately 15" diameter, the last round would need about 540 stitches.

Knowing your SPDI is helpful if you are working with a different thread size than what a pattern calls for and want to know the final diameter of the doily with the smaller (or larger size) thread. (The math for that is a little more involved and I'll save that for another post.)

Stitches per Circumference Inch (SPCI)
This numeric value is important when making things to wear, like a necklace, hat, sock, sweater, etc. When I designed my first barefoot sandal I needed to know what is the average circumference of an adult woman's ankle. The average is about 11". Using the value of 36 stitches from above as an example:

36  ÷ 3.14 (value of pi) = 11.46 (sts per circumference inch)

Round up to 11.5 stitches per circumference inch: 11.5 x 11" = 126.5 dc stitches or thereabouts*

*When I crocheted up a swatch it took only 124 dc stitches.


Want to learn more about pi and Pi Day? Click here.

What are your favorite types of pie?

More About Pi(e)

My other favorite use of pi was in the book Contact by Carl Sagan. 

I also am very fond of pie. I'm very fond of cream cheese, key lime, blackberry pie, and beef shepard's.  My least favorite pie is banana cream and steak and kidney. 

Just for fun

It's National Crochet Month (aka NatCroMo)!

Take the Tour

Crochetville is hosting a special event in honor of National Crochet Month. It's called  A Tour Through Crochet Country. The virtual tour is of various crochet designers' websites or blogs. There will be at least one designer's site to visit each day during the month of March. (The complete schedule is posted here.) You'll want to visit each stop along the tour because there will be a special surprise awaiting visitors at each destination. Plus, it's a great way to virtually meet your favorite designers, or to discover new ones.

Save the Date

You'll especially want to take note of March 28th on the tour schedule. That's the day that I'll be putting up a very special post and surprise! 

It's no coincidence that I'm sharing the date with Kathryn White. She is my official mentor! We've known each other for years and she's been helpful to me before, so us being matched came as no surprise. I hope to perfect my bullion stitch by merely being in her remote presence.

I've already visited the sites for the first two days and so far this tour promises to be a lot of fun and very informative! So click on the links already and start the tour! :-D