Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Math and stuff

I've decided to research the ideal mathematical ratio between baby hat size and gratuitous ears for maximization of hand knit baby cuteness.


Why? No good reason really, other than I enjoy employing the scientific method to urgent matters such as this one. And I worry that babies may be suffering the ill effects of goofy baby hats that don't maximize their cute potential. And we can't have that.


My hypothesis is that similar priniciples of cuteness apply to both goofy hand knit baby animal hats and bona fide baby animals. (for the theoretical framework of baby animal cuteness, please consider the fine body of research at cute overload)


Basically, we posit that baby hats with ears are adorable. And very large or very small ears are even more so. But these assumptions must be validated. Ergo...




Experiment one: A hat for Baby Christopher


For the hat itself, I boosted the pattern for the baby duck hat I made for Baby Aubrey, only, you know, without the duck bill. Using 2 strands (of my never ending supply of) Bernat Softee Baby held together, I cast on 60 stitches.


For each ear, I cast on 20 stitches. For research purposes, we'll call this an ear to baby hat ratio of 20:60, or 1:3.


Should you need to make some ears:

Cast on 20 stitches

Purl across

K2Tog K16 SSK (18 stitches)

Purl across

K2Tog K14 SSK (16 stitches)

Purl across

K2Tog K12 SSK (14 stitches)

Then, they seemed about tall enough, so I sped up the decreasing plan:

P2Tog K10 P2Tog (12 stitches)

Bind off (I K2Tog and the beginning and end of this row too as I was binding off, but I'm not sure if that really makes a difference)


Let them curl in on themselves and attach to the hat in a C-shape. Voila - ears. Good stuff.


We'll have to see how increasing or decreasing the ear to baby hat ratio impact the cuteness factor.


Yay! Science.

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1 Comments:

At 11:50 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

ok, you're my new hero. science and knitting. it doesn't get any better than that!

 

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