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.
Tag: knitwear design
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.
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…
Knitwear Design 101: Introduction to Surface Pattern
“Pattern” is a loaded, confusing word. It can serve as a model or aspirational figure – “If you follow the pattern, you’ll get a sweater like the one in the photo” – or, more likely in that situation, a recipe. Instructions are received and, like cooking, they are used as a base for creation, with…
The Shape of Things to Come
The size the person chooses is a starting point, not a box to fit into.
Knitwear Design 101: A monthly series
Yep, just when you thought I was finished writing a blog series! But this one is monthly rather than weekly, and there will be breaks in between with posts on a variety of subjects. I wanted to have a long-term series on knitwear design because it’s a subdiscipline of design that is also interdisciplinary within…