D. Jacob Wildstrom

Designers

D. Jacob Wildstrom

Associate Professor of Mathematics

Mathematics Department, University of Louisville

Louisville, Kentucky, USA

Biography

D. Jacob Wildstrom is an associate professor of mathematics at the University of Louisville and an amateur crochet artisan who seeks to harmonize natural and self-imposed construction constraints with the implementation of mathematically interesting designs. His works have made use of a structured inclusion of random elements, development rules which use cellular automata, and emergent ways to use traditional crochet techniques to produce novel designs and shapes.

Looks

Image for look 'Perfectly Packed Cape' — A front view of the Perfectly Packed Cape.
Modeled by Shell Wildstrom, photographed by Angela Campbell.

About the look

Perfectly Packed Cape

Fingering-weight wool yarn

2025

In 2018 I developed a method for adapting the traditional technique for crafting granny squares to form polyominoes instead of simply squares and rectangles, which is described fully in the AMS Press publication _Figuring Fibers_. When published, the suggested project was to stitch the pentominoes into a rectangular afghan. Since granny squares have seen extensive use in wearables, appearing in ponchos, sweaters, and shawls, it seemed likely that a wearable design using granny polyominoes was also possible. The twelve pentominoes, which consist of sixty squares in total, can be used to cover a wide variety of shapes, and some of those shapes naturally fit the human body. One such shape is a trapezoid with straight legs and zig-zag bases; with half-squares added to straighten the shorter base, the shape is that of a conventional cape. There are 140 ways to tile such a trapezoid, only two of which can be colored with three colors without identical colors touching along sides or at corners. One of those two tilings appears on the Perfectly Packed Cape.