Translations such as drop repeats and reflections relate to the details, textures or images that make up a pattern. Tessellations refer to the geometric plan of the pattern as a whole.
Author: Natalie in Stitches
London-based fashion and textiles lecturer, designer and writer with specialisms in knitting, crochet, sewing and pattern cutting. Loves anything made with needles, thread and yarn.
Are Zips a Lifestyle Choice?
Is it possible to think of zips as a lifestyle choice rather than an essential part of women’s/femme clothing? I think it is. What do you think?
Knitwear Design 101: Drop repeats and surface pattern design
The drop repeat is the most widely used method of tessellation symmetry in knitting and crochet. It can occur along a vertical axis – when most textile books will refer to it as a ‘drop’ repeat – or a horizontal axis, when it can also be referred to as a brick repeat.
Fortnightly blog posts from next week
A very short but sweet post to let you know that, as of next week, I’ll be posting on a fortnightly schedule.
Programmes and Patterns: Or, What Bugs Us About Knitting
“It’s like code!” is a phrase I’ve heard several times over the years when teaching people how to knit and crochet. If the physical execution is muscle memory, then the pattern itself is a programme or choreography. Another choice word, also gifted by new knitters, is “recipe”, which – although etymologically unconnected to the word…
Favourite Book: Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things
This was the book that made me see that perhaps I could be a designer after all. The focus on product design, engineering and empathy was refreshing because of the focus on people, and designing products and systems that work for the people using them, not the other way around.