HTS Newsletter, March, 2010Volunteer editor: Gary Lee Phillips, tivo.overo at gmail.com
HTS Newsletter, March, 2010
Volunteer editor: Gary Lee Phillips, tivo.overo at gmail.com
Our next meeting will take place on Saturday, March 13, at 10 am at The Fold, 3316 Millstream Rd., Marengo (directions available here.) This month's meeting includes member to member workshop on cotton. If you have a charkha or supported spindle and would like help with it or can share tips, please bring it. We will also cover the techniques for spinning cotton on a flyer wheel. As always, sit & spin, brown bag lunch optional. Dues for 2010 are payable now ($25, make check to The Fold and mark it "Hollow Tree dues." (If you joined and paid since October 1, you're covered for 2010.)
April 10 meeting reminder: Sit & Spin, possible topic to be announced. Brown bag lunch optional.
NEW: You can now subscribe to the HTS newsletter using an RSS reader. Many e-mail programs, such as Thunderbird or Outlook Express, have this capability. The newsletter updates will arrive automatically in your mailbox, ready to read.
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The deadline for the next
newsletter will be March 27, 2010. If you are submitting material for inclusion in the newsletter, I really would appreciate having it by the deadline. The newsletter continues to be delayed by late announcements and information, and I would much prefer to get it out to you several days earlier than is now possible.
No one really knows how fiber arts came to the rescue of higher mathematics. Are more women discovering their inner geek? Is knitting's new reputation as edgy and countercultural somehow attracting math nerds to an ancient craft? No one knows. But the results, now spread all over the internet, testify to to the power of knitting and crochet to illuminate the unfathomable mysteries of higher mathematics.
Take non-Euclidean geometry, for instance, particularly the concept of hyperbolic space. According to Euclid and his followers, if you have a line - we'll call it "L" - and a point called "P" that's not on "L", there can only be one line through "P" which is parallel to "L". The theory sounds reasonable - until you apply it to a sphere, where all diameters ultimately cross each other. On a sphere, there are no parallel lines. And what happens if there are multiple parallel lines through "P"? You get - drumroll please - hyperbolic space.
But how can one depict such a world? One mathematician tried to craft a hyperbolic plane using tiny paper triangles and tape. Needless to say, the model was too fragile and not much use. Then in 1997, Cornell University mathematician Daina Taimina realized that the fiber arts of her childhood offered the strength and flexibility needed. The pattern is simple. Single crochet a fixed number of stitches, and then increase one stitch. Over and over and over again. The crochet begins to ruffle. The ruffles grow ruffles. The ruffled ruffles ruffle. Shazam! A perfect model of hyperbolic space! (Dr. Taimina actually started with knitting, but soon discovered that because the number of stitches increased so rapidly, crochet was easier to handle.)
The resulting shape actually exists in the real world. Think of the ruffles in coral, or certain varieties of lettuce. In fact, much of sea life is shaped according to hyperbolic principles, which led two Australian mathematician sisters, Christine and Margaret Wertheim, to develop the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef.
The crochet coral reef project has travelled around the world. One of Dr. Taimina's crochet creations is on display at the Smithsonian. There are all sorts of pictures and patterns available at the Wertheims' website: the Institute for Figuring.
Other non-Euclidian shapes are equally possible. Who hasn't tried their hand at knitting a Cat Bordhi moebius scarf? One can also knit a Klein bottle: a three dimensional shape with no interior. It makes a great hat. Mathematicians with sticks and string are also producing Lorenz manifolds (i.e., chaos theory), braids and something called a Siefert Surface - where a mathematical surface has a knot as its boundary. Don't ask. Just look at the pictures of Matthew Wright's "Siefert Surface of the Borromean Rings".
Pictures and patterns about on the internet. There's no end to the stuff we can do with the yarn we spin. Enjoy.
The Challenge continues apace, but we can't rely on Sharon and Barb to do it all. Please remember to report your singles yardage to me so I can add it to the chart. At the present rate, we will easily exceed 50 miles by September 30, but that will only happen if Barb and Sharon continue to produce at their present averages, which seems like a lot to ask.
I suspect that we have a lot more yardage being generated and not reported yet, though, so please send me your numbers. All I need is a note each month with the number of yards of singles you spun that month. You can go back and count everything from October 1, 2009 if you wish.
Please note that the morning spinning group that meets at Starbuck's on the Square in Woodstock has changed to TUESDAY mornings. As always, you can check with The Fold a day or two before to make sure people will be there. And a reminder: Your $25 dues for 2010 are now payable. If you joined and paid dues at the end of 2009, after the show opened in October, then you are considered paid for 2010. Otherwise, time to pay up. Your dues help to make the show possible, and also can subsidize various member activities. We are working on some exciting things for this year.
Entire Guild, October 1, 2009 to date: 47,142 yards (26.79 miles)
As promised, a detailed report with monthly averages and projected totals is now available. Click here for the details. Thanks to the fierce lead that Sharon and Barb have taken, we are now ahead of our necessary monthly quotas and have completed over half of the year's goal in just five months. I had originally thought to set the goal at 100 miles, but cooler heads prevailed and I backed down to 50. Maybe that was too easy? I don't know if the leaders can keep up this pace, though. All of us need to keep spinning and reporting our totals each month to make sure we have enough yardage.
Programs for the new year are still in planning. Please refer questions and suggestions about events or schedule to Susan at SusanRubendall at aol.com.
There are now six months left until all show projects for 2010 must be complete. If you didn't enter at least a skein or two in 2009, shame on you. Now is the time to start planning for next year's show.
If you know of an upcoming event, or have a press release or web link, send it to Gary (tivo.overo at gmail.com) in time for the previous month's deadline in order to make sure it gets into the newsletter in time.
Space permitting, members and their friends may submit notices and classified advertisements to appear here.
Did you miss a prior newsletter? It's still available online, right here. Past newsletters are retained online for one year before we retire them to reuse the space.
Are you receiving a monthly e-mail telling you that the newsletter is ready? If not, you need to sign up for the Hollow Tree Spinners e-mail discussion group.
We are trying a Web-based newsletter instead of e-mailing the actual document. This should mean that anyone with access to the internet will be able to see the newsletter, regardless of the kind of computer or software they are using. Most public libraries now have internet browser access as well. An e-mail will be sent to members once a month when the newsletter is ready, reminding them to look at it and print it if they wish. Please let us know what you think. E-mail the editor, Gary Phillips, or guild manager Toni Neil with your comments or suggestions.
Meetings are on the second Saturday of each month unless otherwise announced. The newsletter should be ready by the Saturday before the meeting. Please submit items, announcements, etc. to the newsletter editor, Gary, at least a full week in advance of the newsletter date (TWO weeks before the next meeting.)