Tag Archives: mathematics

Granny Squares, Now in Color

A pretty ugly blanket generated by the Granny Squares app.Many moons ago, I debuted my Granny Squares Color Pattern Generator, a utility to help crocheters randomize their blankets, which can be a daunting task.

I recently got a request for a way to help visualize the blanket that’s generated. It’s hard to work from a list of “r/h/p”-type entries. Not very user-friendly.

So I added in a color picker today, and the generator now shows the colors of the squares. As a warning, if you have a lot of very similar colors, the generated image may be difficult to work from. Then again, if your blanket’s in 15 shades of purple (yes, please!), you may not need this utility.

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Weekly Linkage: Grumpy Heroines, CRUD, and Prison Work

This week’s internet cruising:

Video interlude! This video convinced me to start playing Mass Effect (the first) tonight.

So far, it’s a blast, and not too chock-full of grumpiness. Just enough to be fun.

…I did punch a rambling scientist, though.

Weekly Linkage: A Microaggression, a Game, and Some Dancin’

This week’s internet cruising:

And, by one of my favorite choreographers:

Chewing on Granny Squares

My knitting colleague E. made the (arguably) goofy decision to refresh her crocheting skills by taking on a granny squares blanket.

It’s a great idea for using up a ton of scrap yarn.

It’s not a great idea if you enjoyed the level of sanity you had when you started.

She quickly ran into the classic self-randomizing problem: given 20 different colored yarns of different weights, how do you put 3 different ones in each square while trying to keep the colors as random as possible? Sounds easy enough, but after 15 or so squares, it gets tricky. If you’re aiming for randomization, the last thing you want is a big diagonal of purple in your blanket when you’re done.

So E. appealed to me and asked me to write her a “script” to randomize her colors. I was on board, look forward to some Python/Django fun before I realized that what I’d been handed was a graph coloring problem with some fun restraints. (Turns out it was easy, but fun to think through.)

Before I get into the technical bits, go make a blanket or two. Then go find some esoteric method to contact me (or comment here) and let me know what you think, especially if you run into an issue.
Continue reading Chewing on Granny Squares

Weekly linkage

From my 2005 trip to California.Just a few: