Have you ever thought about designing or making a colourful project—granny squares, helical knitting, maybe stripes—that involved a complex or unique colour sequence or order? Something like an afghan with ten colors of yarn, but with no two squares exactly the same. How would you know how many squares to knit or crochet without writing down all the combinations longhand, hoping that you don’t miss any? The answer lies with the factorial button, which is represented by an exclamation mark (!) on your calculator. In this workshop you will learn:
How to calculate the number of unique colour combinations, no matter how many colours are involved;
How to group and organise your project so that you don’t duplicate any elements or motifs in the design;
How to calculate yarn needs so that you buy the right quantities – or can check how much of your stash you’ll need for your project
A scientific calculator (like the one in your phone)—this will feature the factorial button (!). It is possible to do the calculations longhand, but this will take longer. You will be shown how to do the necessary calculations, but as all calculators are somewhat different it will be handy for you to know how to access the factorial operation beforehand;
Pen, pencil, paper and/or notebook;
You do not need to prepare any knitting for this class, but you may wish to have some odd colors on standby or a related colourwork project in mind so that you can consolidate the learning during and after the class. There will be a full demonstration of all equations and how the math can be applied to knitting and crochet.