A new knitting pattern book called Stitching in the Stacks has been released in digital form today, and will be released in a print version in July. Browsing the patterns, I found several wonderfully geeky projects for all the book-loving nerds in the audience. (That's me!)
Metadata Scarf and Cowl
Alexandra Tinsley
At first glance, the scarf and infinity cowl appear to be just another basic striped pattern. (It's hard to tell from the photos, but this seems to be a slip stitch pattern similar to the popular Honey Cowl.) But upon reading the description, we learn that the pattern actually encodes the Dewey Decimal code for knitting books (746.432) into the stripe sequence.
This type of encoding has been done before, from binary to the Fibonacci sequence. But not only does the Dewey Decimal number have an extra bit of bookish flair, it also creates a nice set of stripes. And like most coded projects, this one doesn't shout "geek" if you want something nice to wear to the office.
Dewey Decimal Hat
Brenda K. B. Anderson
Unlike the Metadata scarf and cowl, the Dewey Decimal Hat wears its geek cred "loud and proud." This project is a stranded slouchy hat with a bullseye pattern of stripes at the top, and the Dewey Decimal code for knitting books - plus a heart - around the midsection.
As with the Metadata scarf and cowl, this hat can be customized to any Dewey Decimal code you want to represent. And the hat is adorable, too!
Jessamyn Mitts
Joy Gerhardt
All of the projects in Stitching in the Stacks are a little bit geeky, but the Jessamyn Mitts are a little more so. These pretty mitts are inspired by and named after Jessamyn West, who is not only a famous librarian, but is also one of the moderators at Metafilter.
Image courtesy Flickr/Paul Lowry
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