Monday, September 27, 2010

Tessa what?

The neighboring county where I work (as opposed to the county where I live) recently opened a brand new library. I went to purchase a non-resident card today, as our own county library leaves much to be desired. I only had about 15 minutes left to browse...and having never left a library empty-handed, I found one book that I had to take home. Designing Tessellations by Jinny Beyer. What is a tessellation, you ask? It is a repeating shape that forms interlocking patterns. (Think M.C. Escher) I thought this would be an interesting read from a designing perspective. Man, is that ever an understatement. If you are interested, this is the book. It is really getting the creative juices flowing for me. Many designs I have already done in the past utilized this concept, I just didn't know that it had a name! One example is my Spider Stitch Throw that I designed for Caron Yarn, International. This photo doesn't show it in detail, but there are "tiles" rotated around a point to form a pinwheel type pattern. There is a better picture on the Ravelry site of a version made by grumpyspixie here. Yep. Tessellation. This is gonna be so. much. fun! Stay tuned.

2 comments:

Francesca said...

This is a very interesting! So many (most?) crochet patterns are based on repetitions of motifs/shapes, which probably means that tessellation is one of the fundamental basis of pattern design. "Tessellation" is going to be my favorite word and concept:)

Crochet Renee' said...

Yes, mine too, Francesca. This is a very interesting book.