The weird and wonderful objects featured in the display have been knitted and crocheted to illustrate various mathematical concepts and ideas. For example, these cowls are actually Mobius Strips (surfaces which have only one edge and one side) and these little trees (the brilliantly named Binary Bonsai) can be used to calculate or illustrate probability.
My personal favourite has got to be the crocheted hyperbolic forms, which look like they belong either on the bottom of the sea or in outer space! You can create your own by starting with a few stitches (either in a line or in a circle) and then rapidly increasing the stitches at a constant rate. For example, you could create one new stitch after every three. This causes the shape to expand at an increasing rate and mimics the way many plants grow (and explains why these pieces look a lot like a coral reef).
The display will be up for the next few weeks, so feel free to swing by the shop for a closer look.
Special thanks to Julia and Madeleine for the kind loan of their woolly maths.
Post by Heather in our Edinburgh branch