Now I can finally reveal some gift knitting! When David was little, he had a stuffed dodecahedron as a toy. In fact, his first big word was "dodecahedron". Is it any wonder he grew up to be a mathematician? Soon after David told me about this, we discovered that his old toy had been thrown away. It was a sad day.
A few years ago I quilted David an icosahedron for Christmas. The equilateral triangles that make up the sides were a lot easier to cut out than pentagons. For this year, I decided to tackle the dodecahedron. I found it quite easy to make knitted pentagons, and the rest was simple after that!
Pattern: My own
Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted in Vermillion, Rhodesian, Sauterne, Olive, Stone Blue, Velvet Grapes and unknown (partial balls of all)
Needles: US Size 6 and size G crochet hook
Time to Knit: July 11 - August 3
I happened to have a lot of Malabrigo yarn in my stash, so it was a great choice for this project! Once the pentagons were knitted, I loosely lined them with a matching fabric pentagon. I only tacked it on at the edges and center because I wanted the pentagon to be able to stretch to the correct size, but I did want to prevent the stuffing from showing through the holes in the knitting.
Because of the nature of the fabric and stuffing, it looks more like a ball than a regular polygon. I think the only way to get around this is to have the stuffing be a foam core that could hold a rigid shape. But this works well enough for me!
I spent a lot of time working on this while at my local SNB. It was kind of funny to see people's reactions when I told them what I was making.
David was really happy and surprised when he opened up the gift. He immediately started giving me a math lesson about it, too. I think that means he likes it :)
PS. David wants to thank all of you for the birthday wishes. He really enjoyed reading through all of the comments!
see, you two are made for eachother. You can tell when he likes things. plus you make an effort to make things he would like. I like you dodecahedron. Although I would be tempted to play football with it.
Posted by: jiva | August 10, 2007 at 10:47 AM
What a nice and thoughtful gift! Your stitches and shapes are really nice too! Hope David's birthday was nice!
Posted by: Carol | August 10, 2007 at 11:24 AM
i'm so glad he liked it! i've been waiting since yesterday to hear how it went!
Posted by: jody | August 10, 2007 at 11:29 AM
what a great gift! very unique - it would, on a smaller scale, make a great kitty toy stuffed with catnip! :)
Posted by: stacey | August 10, 2007 at 11:46 AM
I can't pronounce it, but what a great dodecahedron. Ingenius!
Posted by: Kim | August 10, 2007 at 12:16 PM
I have no idea how to pronounce that, but I think it's beautiful!
Posted by: kim | August 10, 2007 at 12:21 PM
That is awesome. I love math just enough to appreciate those that REALLY love it, and clearly your fella is one of those.
Oh, also, have you seen this: http://www.knit-purl.com/Products/Product.php?Product_ID=270? It's sort of a misnomer, as it's not really an icosahedron at all, but it's pretty cool nonetheless.
Posted by: Stella | August 10, 2007 at 12:26 PM
That's the finest looking dodecahedron I've ever seen! I've always loved to bandy about the word dodecahedron. Never in my life would I have thought to knit one. But I love that you did. And I love that David loved it. I think it's wonderful how you guys embrace your mathiness and have such fun with it. And I still maintain that if they'd taught me how to knit in school, they would have gotten alot further with teaching me math.
Posted by: Jean | August 10, 2007 at 01:10 PM
Well done! Great dodecahedron. David may have to share it with Philana; it looks very kitty friendly too.
Posted by: Brenda | August 10, 2007 at 01:58 PM
That's a cool present!
Posted by: tiennie | August 10, 2007 at 02:50 PM
I clicked on the Wikipedia link, saw all those equations on the page, and felt slightly faint. ;-)
Posted by: Beth S. | August 10, 2007 at 03:35 PM
Very cool! And such a thoughtful gift!
Posted by: Ariel | August 10, 2007 at 04:16 PM
Very cool piece of knitting art. And a very thoughtful gift. You seem like a happy couple :-)
I think your foam interior idea is clever. I used to work at Jo-Ann's and when we sold foam we would cut it with an electric carving knife. I bet that would work really well to create the shape you want. I wonder, too, how this might be if it were felted?
Posted by: Lydia Penner | August 11, 2007 at 03:07 PM
How wonderfully geeky. :)
Posted by: Sacha | August 11, 2007 at 07:53 PM
That is truly a personalized gift. Awesome.
Posted by: Christy / Not Hip | August 14, 2007 at 12:09 PM
Wonderful! What a great gift.
Posted by: Maia | August 19, 2007 at 04:08 PM
It came out great! So glad he liked it! :)
Posted by: Jessica | August 20, 2007 at 09:47 AM
omg, I love it! nerdy knits are the BEST knits. :)
Posted by: pamela wynne | August 23, 2007 at 11:06 AM
Hi, Came here via Flintknits. Love your dodecahedron! You've also given me a great idea for using up little bits of different yarn I have left.
Posted by: desiknitter | September 07, 2007 at 10:59 AM