Emily Dennett
I teach high school mathematics and computer science. I also enjoy knitting and crocheting, particularly smaller objects such as socks, mittens, and other accessories. This year I've been experimenting with creating knitting patterns that are generated using randomness either prior to or as the object is being knit.
The 1982 Commodore 64 computer’s user guide included one line of
code written in BASIC that generatively produced a maze-like
pattern, often referred to 10 Print. As the program was run, it
would continually print either a forward slash or backward slash,
randomly chosen by generating a number between 0 and 1. To create
knitted items with the 10 Print pattern, used six by six blocks of
stitches to create either a forward slash or a backwards slash. In
this winter accessory set containing mittens, a hat, and a cowl, I
experimented with the probabilities that were used to decide when
a forward slash would be knit and when a backwards slash would be
knit.