What is curve stitching?

Answer 1

I discovered curve stitching in junior high school. This technique, invented by Englishwoman Mary Everest Boole (1832 - 1916) in 1904, produces apparent curves by means of perfectly straight lines. Mary Boole worked with thread and cardstock, though I personally have only worked with pen or pencil on paper and, more recently, with a computer. Curve stitching relies on the fact that a curve can be approximated by a finite number of closely spaced tangents, and the archetypal curve-stitch figure is that of the parabola, shown at the right. Over the years, I have been less interested in devising new curve-stitch designs than I have been of executing designs really well. When I was in high school, however, I did develop one design, which I call a curve-stitch isometric cube, and which I executed with great success (and much tedium) by hand. Now that I have my own computer and some arcane programming skills, executing designs (and even exploring new designs) has become much easier. I still use pencil and paper, of course, but I have also found it convenient to create designs through programming. This can be almost as tedious as working with pen and ink, but it has the advantage that mistakes generally don't make me start over from the beginning. Moreover, once I get a program right, I can reproduce a design effortlessly and at will. Below are links to a discussion of my curve-stitch isometric cube, as well as to other new designs. I must warn visitors that, although I have tried not to put too many illustrations on any given page, I have opted to use relatively high-resolution graphics, so some pages will load slowly if you do not have a broadband internet connection. Lower-resolution graphics or smaller graphics that show enlarged pictures when clicked on are irritating in other ways, so I have avoided them. Patience will, I think, be rewarded.