One of the things I like best about crochet is the way it can transport you. With just a hook and some yarn (or thread depending on your preferred mode of transport), you can leave a loud middle school lunchroom and find peace and quiet that 7th graders cannot provide.

Such were the circumstances that motivated me to make this hyperbolic plane:

At the time, I was teaching math to 7th graders, and our agendas often seemed to be in conflict. They wanted to talk; I wanted them to be quiet. They thought they should be allowed to walk around the classroom at will; I wanted them to sit still for the 90 minute duration of the class.

But every day at lunch, I could count on a few minutes of a sort of peace. While the other teachers and I were required to eat in the lunchroom with our charges, we had our own table and students could stand in proximity only by permission. I would eat my lunch quickly so that I could turn my attention to my crochet before the bell rang.

One of the projects I worked on during lunchtime was the large, yellow hyperbolic plane pictured above. I intended to (and did) use it to decorate my classroom. In the process of making the plane, I transformed the bright (some might say garish) yellow Red Heart Super Saver yarn from a pile of skeins to an interesting and undulating form, and my students were transformed from loud children who engaged in not-stop talking as if it were an Olympic sport, to children who watched me make stitches in silence, hushing anyone who made too much noise lest permission to stand near the teacher’s lunch table be revoked.

And that, to my mind is part of the power of crochet: that with just one simple tool, some thread, and a slip knot and chain you can take yourself from anywhere you are to anywhere you want to be.