Generative Loopwork

Two photographs of a hand-worked piece were read at magnification. It contains no knots: it is a chain of loops that captures wooden rings by passing through them. Nine rules were derived, and the generator implements exactly those.

• L1Pass the bight through the loop you just made — a chain.
• L2Two carried strands, alternating every stitch. The two-tone pattern is a consequence, not a design.
• L3Pass through an older loop and the chain joins itself into a mesh. Which older loop is the one thing the photographs cannot settle.
• L4Pass through a wooden ring and it is captured for good. This is why rings accumulate.
• L5The same act at more than one gauge.
• L6Stop, cut, let the tails hang. The fringe is spent strands, not decoration.
• L7Three-dimensionality is a consequence. Nothing is shaped; it bunches.
• L8The act needs an open loop and somewhere to put the bight. When the tip has neither, the work is carried elsewhere, leaving a float.
• L9The hand works at a tension that drifts. The same cord runs 2.5–3× tighter in one passage than another.

What is measured and what is chosen

Ring count, stitch count, size and tail count are outputs, not settings. Sizes are real: everything is measured in cord diameters, so an 8 mm cord puts these pieces at roughly 19 cm across. The cord is inextensible — pull a binding taut and pulling harder achieves nothing, which is why the piece comes with you instead of stretching.

What this page cannot do

The generator is Python and does not run here, so these four pieces are pre-made. Everything else is live: the build animation plays the configurations the work actually passed through, and the handling runs the generator's own solver with its own constants.