As it is often said, something good often comes out of most bad situations. The time I spent during COVID-19, at home and isolated with my two children, brought out one secret passion in me: crocheting. Not only did it help me pass the time in a sane and productive way, but also it gave me a new goal in life. It connected my math side with my artistic side. It gave me a new perspective to look at math, and helped me help others see math in a positive way

Aslan, Beyza C

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Journal of Humanistic Mathematics Volume 11 | Issue 2 July 2021 Crocheting Mathematics Through COVID-19 Beyza C. Aslan University of North Florida Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm  Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons, Mathematics Commons, and the Other Applied Mathematics Commons Recommended Citation Aslan, B. C. "Crocheting Mathematics Through COVID-19," Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Volume 11 Issue 2 (July 2021), pages 286-290. . Available at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/vol11/iss2/14 ©2021 by the authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. JHM is an open access bi-annual journal sponsored by the Claremont Center for the Mathematical Sciences and published by the Claremont Colleges Library | ISSN 2159-8118 | http://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/ The editorial staff of JHM works hard to make sure the scholarship disseminated in JHM is accurate and upholds professional ethical guidelines. However the views and opinions expressed in each published manuscript belong exclusively to the individual contributor(s). The publisher and the editors do not endorse or accept responsibility for them. See https://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/policies.html for more information. Crocheting Mathematics Through COVID-19Beyza C. AslanDepartment of Mathematics & Statistics, University of North Florida, USAbeyza.aslan@unf.eduSynopsisAs it is often said, something good often comes out of most bad situations.The time I spent during COVID-19, at home and isolated with my two children,brought out one secret passion in me: crocheting. Not only did it help me passthe time in a sane and productive way, but also it gave me a new goal in life. Itconnected my math side with my artistic side. It gave me a new perspective tolook at math, and helped me help others see math in a positive way.Keywords: crochet, mathematics, geometry, COVID-19, mathematical arts.Many little girls growing up in Turkey were taught skills like crocheting,knitting, or sewing by their mother figures. The tradition was that they wereexpected to make things that they would need for their marriage home whilewaiting to get married. During my childhood, and in my family, learning suchcrafts was considered a tradition of learning a productive way of passing timethan getting ready for marriage. I was very interested in all kinds of crafts.I enjoyed making new things for myself and my dolls. I found that spendingtime making crafts brought certain kind of peace and relaxation to me. Iwould not know until many years later the real power of making crafts.Fast forward to my adulthood, working through college, graduate school,post-doctorate, tenure-track job, and raising kids, which all basically tookover my life. Making crafts was the last thing on my mind in the middle ofall of that, and I stayed away from all kinds of crafts for well over 25 years.However, in the last few years, I found myself interested in crocheting onceagain, this time to keep my mind occupied as I was going through a verystressful time.Journal of Humanistic Mathematics Volume 11 Number 2 (July 2021)Beyza C. Aslan 287It all started when I saw a beautiful crocheted dreamcatcher in a store. Thepattern was beautiful, but it was made in a very clumsy way, and I thought Icould make a better one. Little did I know that this would lead me to createan online store for crocheted dreamcatchers. This little crocheting adventurebecame my magical companion through those difficult times, and I felt verygrateful to have learned those skills early in life.During January of 2020, I took my two daughters with me to a conferencefor the first time as a single mom: the 2020 Joint Mathematics Meetingsin Denver, CO. As we were exploring the beloved exhibits section, and asthe girls were picking up every little free item they could find, I stumbledacross this book titled Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes, byDaina Taimina [1]. It was love at first sight; the book and I were a perfectmatch! I ordered a copy, and as soon as it arrived, I started my first projectof crocheting a hyperbolic plane.Before I finished my first project, we heard the words “COVID-19” and “pan-demic”, and the world shut down, including my university. At the time wethought we were only going home for the spring break, and maybe an ad-ditional week or two. The last day in my office I said to my colleague nextdoor who specializes in geometry, “It looks like we will be home for a while,I may need another project to keep me busy. Tell me what you would likeme to make that would be useful for your students.” Little did we know, wewould still be teaching from home a year later, and I would need way morethan one project to stay busy.As a single mother of two children, I was stuck at home trying to figureout their online schools, which required a zillion different apps and software,while trying to figure out how to teach my online classes with the limitedresources we had at the time, and trying to keep my sanity all at the sametime. The amount of cooking and cleaning was increased as well because wewere at home all the time and ordering food was not an option anymore. Itwas difficult. We all needed to learn to peacefully coexist in the house 24/7,seeing no one else, and while keeping up with our responsibilities — no easytask for anyone involved.Once again crocheting became my magical companion. One after anotherI made interesting math objects including, but not limited to, Klein bottle,288 Crocheting Mathematics Through COVID-19Costa surface, and cross-capped disk. I had great pleasure making every oneof them. I used my book for some of them, and I used my imagination forsome of the others. I would be so involved in crocheting that I would losetrack of time. Geometry is not my research area, so I had to read and learnthe math involved as I crocheted, and that gave me great pleasure as well.Figure 1: Möbius circles and a Klein bottle made by the author.Due to the increased responsibilities that came from staying home with twochildren, unfortunately, I was not able to be involved in math very muchBeyza C. Aslan 289anymore. However, making these fun mathematical objects and readingabout them kept me connected to math. It gave me a sense of normalcy —there was still math in my life. As the number of pieces increased and asI found myself making plans to make many other objects, friends startedasking about what the plan was for all these, according to many “awkward”,objects. One day, I finally had an answer. Open an exhibit!Figure 2: A sphere and a cross-capped disk made by the author.I pass by this little art gallery on campus every day as I am on my way toteach a class for the 13 years I have been working at the University of NorthFlorida. It is easily accessible to anyone on campus, and it displays exhibitsfrom artists on campus and elsewhere. Now, my goal is to open an exhibit ofmy mathematical art when campus life gets back to, at least, near normal,to show the beauty of mathematics to our students, faculty, and staff oncampus. This goal, I hope, will keep me busy, sane, and focused through therest of our time staying home trying to keep the world safe from COVID-19.References[1] Daina Taimina, Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes: TactileMathematics, Art and Craft for all to Explore, Second Edition, AK Pe-ters/CRC Recreational Mathematics Series, 2018.290 Crocheting Mathematics Through COVID-19Figure 3: A catenoid and a helicoid created by the author.Author bio: Beyza Aslan is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University ofNorth Florida. She received her Ph. D. from the University of Florida in 2007. Beforejoining the faculty at the University of North Florida, she was a Visiting Assistant Professorat the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Aslan studies lightning modeling to estimatethe change in the electric potential due to lightning. She also studies data analysis as itrelates to mitochondrial disorders.Figure 4: A hyperbolic plane and a Klein quartic created by the author.

Crocheting Mathematics Through COVID-19

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Crocheting Mathematics Through COVID-19

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