Encoded Crafting

While I was knitting one day, my eldest son was prattling on about his coding class.  I happened to glance down at my pattern and realized – with unjustified surprise – that I was looking at lines of code.

An acquaintance of mine describes knitting as a form of moving meditation, akin to Tai Chi.  I don’t disagree with her, but my mindset does not naturally turn to such poetic interpretations.  I agree that in every knitting project, a moment is reached when the undulations and natural flow of the work carry the pattern forward.  However, before reaching that stage , and in establishing the pattern, the process is more literal and prosaic.  The sequence, the number, and the type of stitches must be called out very exactly by the pattern you are following.

Each written knitting pattern consists of instructions recorded line-by-line and stitch-by-stitch.  The details are presented in code: K for knit and P for purl are the most common elements, but more specialized code is defined in the legend of each pattern. The knitter must acquaint herself with the publisher’s language and understand the physical action the instructions represent.  Even the youngest of knitters is expected to understand the code and manipulate it to meet their ends.

As inferred above, the basic elements of the knitter’s skills are binary actions – Knit and Purl – indicating whether the loop of yarn is brought to either the front or the back of the work.  Even more sophisticated techniques, such as cabling, casting off, picking up stitches, and working through back of loop, are merely variations on the binary options.  Embedded in all but the simplest of patterns are subroutines – instructions for a sequence of actions to be repeated in particular locations or until a specific criterion is met.  The end result of the knitter’s labor is softwear (unless particularly itchy wool is used).

The knitting pattern is quite clearly a coded set of instructions that predates the development of the computer, and one which was generally mastered only by women.  The same intellectual abilities that are needed to knit are needed to code.  Women have demonstrated ability in the first for centuries, so why are so few of them engaged in the second in 2019? 

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