This was the original Perfectly Simple.

Okay, not really--this was the second one. The first one, I made after seeing Kathy Merrick’s Babette Blanket pattern and deciding that I had to make a simple perfect squared rectangle for Bob and Ellen Kaplan.

Math people call a rectangle divided into squares a “squared rectangle,” and some of them like to figure out strange ways to make them. If you manage to divide the rectangle into squares no two of which have the same size, then you’ve made a perfect squared rectangle. If you can’t separate those squares into smaller rectangles, then you’ve made a simple perfect squared rectangle. I first learned about all these things from Bob and Ellen, who have been challenging students in their Math Circle to find a perfect squared rectangle for years.

So I crocheted one, and I sent it to Bob and Ellen, and I decided I couldn’t bear not to have one of my own, so I made this one for me.

The pattern is now part of Crafting by Concepts, the second mathematical fiber arts book edited by sarah-marie belcastro and Carolyn Yackel.