Math is Delicious

(Wait! Come back! Don’t run screaming from the blog!)

So about a week and a half ago, at about three in the morning, I said on Twitter that I wished I could teach a math for knitters course; I love math, I love knitting, I really love teaching, so it seemed a natural extension. Immediately after tweeting, I thought to myself, why the heck can’t I? So I started putting together a class list and all of these ideas on what I wanted to teach, and even generated an outline for the first class. I figured within a month or two I could even start posting the classes for sale.

Then Dani showed up here on her Craft Culture summer tour, and, in a terrifying take no prisoners tone, told me that I would be publishing the first class by Sunday. As in tomorrow. I told her she was crazy, but we went to my usual coffeeshop on Thursday, where we spent 8 hours working and chatting.

By the end, my class was pretty much done, and she had written a book proposal, which made me feel both really accomplished and also like my life is really, really ridiculous, because this is what I do for a living.

But the upside is, now you can have a class!

Math for Knitters

There are plenty of tutorials, calculators, and other helpful guides out there to instruct you on how to customize patterns, how to shape a sleeve cap, how to calculate rates of increases and decreases for a proper fit. Here’s the thing, though: for the math-averse, it can be overwhelming! To be told nothing more than to take x stitches over y inches and make that equal to the ratio of z stitches over some other seemingly made up number… it’s mind boggling. And worse, when it doesn’t quite turn out the result you intended, it can be nearly impossible to figure out exactly what went wrong—and how to make it better.

These classes are designed to demystify the math and make the logic behind the numbers easier to understand, as well as provide insight into what makes knitting go. Rather than simply providing formulas or instructions for how to calculate your way through your knitting, this course seeks to examine why and how these equations work in a friendly, non-intimidating format. It is not about understanding knitting through math; rather, it’s about understanding math through knitting.

Highly recommended for those of you who love to learn and are looking to get more out of your knitting.

CLASS 1 (available here)
Pre-algebra and an introduction to knitting math; full description available at the product page.

CLASS 2
Algebra and gauge math, including but not limited to discussions on swatches, ratios, basic upsizing and downsizing, and yarn substitution.

CLASS 3
Geometry and fit, including but not limited to how to allow for curves, measuring for the right fit, and short rows vs. darts.

CLASS 4
Advanced algebra and shaping techniques, including but not limited to working with stitch patterns, knitting as word problems, and keeping track of several different pieces of shaping at the same time.

CLASS 5
Math for designing from scratch, including but not limited to complex shaping and systems of equations, sleeve cap math, and grading patterns to fit a variety of shapes and sizes.

CLASS 6
A full tutorial on a completely custom fit, choose your own adventure sweater.

All of these classes will be available in the shop for $10 each. Purchase of any class includes free support via email on all of the mathematics presented in that class, as well as a discount on my mathematics consulting services. Those who purchase the first five classes will receive 50% off the final class; when the series is completed, it will be compiled into an e-book, available for $55. (Those who have purchased the entire series previously can also receive the full e-book at this time for no extra charge.)

And if you’d like to hear me blather on further about it, I talked a bit about it on this week’s episode of Dani’s Craft Culture podcast.