Lets crochet the Periodic Table
I come from a biochemistry background and have been wondering for a while if it’d be possible to crochet the Periodic Table. So what would a Periodic Table afghan look like? I decided to use my site JemsGraphs.com to draw out the basic shape and choose from the suite of 88 colours of Stylecraft Special DK to make a gorgeous patchwork effect.
My draft pattern above showcases the 118 elements, which means 118 different crocheted blocks. That’s quite a lot of blocks! The hard thing will be joining them. I’m thinking I’ll join them one group of elements at a time otherwise it’ll never get finished.
I’ve chosen a different colour for each of the eight main groups of the table, starting with all yellows for group one and going through to pinks for group eight. I’ve chosen blues for the non metals and greens for groups five and six, plus my favourite colour from Nuts About Squares - Bluebell - for the blocks where the elements exhibit both metal and non-metal properties.
It was harder to pick colours for the transition metal block. I wanted to pick colours which represented the element, as the transition metals can be very colourful. While researching this in more depth, I found this was true for the elements at the top of the block, but those at the bottom are heavier and some are unstable so there’s never been any colour chemistry with them. I’ve left them in silver and grey for now but I might change my mind later.
I’ve left the block of lanthanoids and actinoids in an apricot colour for now, I might put one of them in a slightly different pink, or I might mix up the colours more like in the rest of the transition block. I plan to crochet the transition block elements after groups one to eight so I can make those decisions much, much later!
With 118 blocks, plus joining time, I’m hoping I can make this in about a year or 18 months. That means two or three blocks a week, but I’ve already made up Hydrogen in white treble crochet and it’s fairly quick… so hopefully it’ll be finished sooner rather than later!