The Geometry of Hand-Sewing.

  Most days, I surf through Amazon looking for interesting books on an assortment of topics.  During my search I came across a book titled "The Geometry of Hand-Sewing" by Natalie Chanin on sale for $2.99 instead of the $18.00 digital price.  The title was enough to cause me to purchase it.

In the introduction, she stated she was introduced to geometry via a book "The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics" by Norton Juster. 

She also mentions Euclid's "Elements" as the love letter to Geometry in which he explains how points and lines working together create all the shapes in our world. She also stated that she loves the relationships between points, lines, and surfaces which to me is such a profound statement since most geometric figures can be explained via the use of points, lines, and surfaces. 

Natalie goes on to explain that when she and her coworkers examined and compared various stitches, they were all based on the geometric grid system.  So the rest of the book after the introduction, is spent showing people how to apply the grid system to various stitches.  The grids might be square, diamond, rectangular, triangular or isolated circle. 

These grids provide the pattern for the stitching.  People are expected  to download and print the appropriate grid card with the correct grid and scale before transferring the information to the material in order to create the stitches. 

Before teaching a specific step, the author lets the reader know which grid is being used. For instance, the straight stitch which is simply a line where the needle comes up and goes down on equally spaced apart uses the one row square or diamond grid.

So each stitch or group of stitches are grouped together based on the grid they share in common.  Its amazing because they can create variety of stitches, including ones that are circular shaped from these grids and most are based on straight lines.

This books takes the basic tenants of geometry to create the stitches.  I love the book because it gives me a new way of presenting geometry in a way some of my students might relate to.  When I learned hand sewing, they never taught it using grids.  It was the watch, copy, and hope you learned to eyeball the distances to create the work. This is awesome.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day and check out the book.