Etch-A-Stitch: Draw Your Embroidery with Arrow Keys

Even Pac-Man can't resist a TurtleStitch makeover....

sketched entirely with arrow keys, one keystroke at a time.

Remember the Etch-A-Sketch? That frustratingly fun red toy where you twisted knobs to draw lines that never quite went where you wanted them to, then shook it to erase everything and start over? Well, TurtleStitch just got its own keyboard-powered version and this time, your designs end up on fabric! Or paper too!

Etch-A-Stitch is a TurtleStitch program that lets you draw freehand embroidery designs using nothing but your keyboard arrow keys. No mouse choreography, no coordinate math, just you, your arrow keys, and your imagination.

Your Arrow Keys

How to Play

It's simple enough to pick up in under a minute:

• Press 0 to get started.
• Use the arrow keys to draw - up, down, left, right, just like navigating a retro video game.
• Press u to lift the pen when you want to move without sketching, and d to put it back down.
• Oops? Press r to remove your last keystroke - no shaking required!
• When your design is ready, press s to scale it. You'll then be asked if you want to scale your design. If you're happy with the size, just type no. Otherwise, enter a decimal to resize it: something like .50 to make it half the size, or 2.25 to make it more than double!

Why It's Fun

There's something wonderfully playful about drawing with arrow keys. It invites happy accidents, unexpected angles, geometric patterns that emerge from simple moves, little pixel-art-style motifs that look surprisingly charming once they're stitched out. It's a great way to loosen up and experiment without overthinking a design.

It's also a fantastic tool for introducing people to TurtleStitch for the first time. The controls are immediately intuitive, the feedback is instant, and the leap from "I drew that with arrow keys" to "and now it's embroidered on fabric" never gets old.

Beyond the Embroidery Hoop

And here's a bonus: your Etch-A-Stitch designs don't have to end up on fabric! Export your design as an SVG (use the drop-down menu in the file menu at the top left of the TurtleStitch screen) and open that file in your Silhouette cutting machine software to have it sketched onto paper instead. The result is a beautifully delicate sketch, perfect for a one-of-a-kind greeting card or a framed piece of art. From keyboard doodle to handcrafted keepsake, the possibilities are wider than you might think!

Fun Facts: How Does a Real Etch-A-Sketch Work?

Ever wonder what's actually going on inside that iconic red toy? It's more clever than you might think!

The inside surface of the glass screen is coated with aluminum powder, which gives it that familiar silvery-gray look. When you turn the knobs, a hidden stylus scrapes the powder away, exposing the dark interior of the toy underneath...so you're not actually drawing a black line, you're revealing the darkness inside! The knobs are connected to the stylus through a surprisingly complex system of pulleys and steel wires, with one knob controlling horizontal movement and the other controlling vertical movement.

And erasing? When you turn the Etch-A-Sketch upside down and shake it, tiny polystyrene beads mixed in with the powder help smooth everything out and re-coat the screen evenly. Shake, and your masterpiece disappears!

One more fun quirk: because the stylus can never be lifted off the glass, every single drawing is one continuous unbroken line. Etch-A-Stitch works the same way...your design is one continuous thread from start to finish, just like the toy that inspired it. The only difference? Press u to lift the pen and d to put it back down so that jump stitches can be produced...those small connecting threads that hop between sections of a design without stitching the path in between. You have a little more control than those two white knobs ever gave you!

Give It a Try!

Whether you're a seasoned TurtleStitch coder or just discovering the world of coded embroidery, Etch-A-Stitch is a delightful sandbox to play in. Fire it up, press 0, and start sketching! Here's the code in TurtleStitch.

A Mathematical Wonderland of Alice, the Poincaré Disk, and a Turtle Named TurtleStitch

An Embroidered Poincaré Disk Using Variegated Blue Thread

At first glance, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the Poincaré disk model of hyperbolic geometry seem to have little in common. One belongs to a world of talking rabbits, tea parties, and grinning cats. The other belongs to mathematics, where curved spaces and non-Euclidean geometry challenge our understanding of distance and perspective.

Yet the more I explored the Poincaré disk through TurtleStitch, the more I found myself following Alice down the rabbit hole.

My own journey into this curious mathematical world began last summer at the ICERM Illustrating Mathematics Reunion/Expansion. In a fascinating presentation, by Alba Málaga Sabogal from the Université de Lorraine, I was introduced to Voltaire Brossier's right-angled regular pentagon tiling of the hyperbolic plane on the Poincaré disk. Alba shared a physical model of the tiling. You can see her Poincaré disk in this ICERM video archive; at 10:47. Seeing that model sparked my own curiosity and inspired me to begin exploring the Poincaré disk through TurtleStitch. Although distorted in Euclidean appearance, each pentagon has five equal sides and five right angles in the hyperbolic metric. Seeing this model was my first glimpse of the surprising beauty of hyperbolic geometry.

The Poincaré disk model, introduced by the French mathematician Henri Poincaré in the late nineteenth century, provides a way to visualize hyperbolic geometry inside a circle. Although the entire hyperbolic plane lies within the disk, objects appear to shrink as they approach the boundary, creating a mathematical landscape that seems perfectly suited to Alice's Wonderland.

Three Interpretations of the Poincaré disk which have been sketched onto cardstock. 

The code was exported from TurtleStitch as an SVG and then sketched with the Silhouette machine.

Here is the TurtleStitch code - Poincaré disk - left, Poincaré disk - middle, Poincaré disk - right.  

Over the past year, I have created three interpretations of the Poincaré disk. Each of the above designs began as a TurtleStitch program and was later sketched on a Silhouette Cameo. What fascinates me most about the disk is that it represents a world where the familiar rules of geometry no longer behave as we expect. Straight lines become arcs, distances appear distorted, and objects seem to shrink as they approach the boundary. 

In many ways, this mathematical universe feels remarkably similar to Wonderland. 

Wonderland is a place where the rules of everyday life are suspended and replaced with a different set of rules. Alice repeatedly encounters situations that defy ordinary logic. She grows larger and smaller, time behaves strangely, and familiar assumptions no longer apply. Hyperbolic geometry asks us to do something similar. It invites us to leave behind the comfortable geometry of the classroom and enter a space where our intuition must be rebuilt.

One of the most beautiful features of the Poincaré disk is the way geodesics, the hyperbolic equivalent of straight lines, appear as circular arcs that meet the boundary at right angles. This remarkable property became the foundation of my TurtleStitch programs. By carefully coding these arcs, I was able to create embroidered visualizations of this extraordinary geometric world.

Recently, my interest in this world took on a more personal meaning. My five-year-old granddaughter performed in a ballet production of Alice in Wonderland. To celebrate her performance, I designed and built a three-dimensional paper diorama and a Wonderland-themed vase depicting Alice, the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, and a colorful parrot, the role my granddaughter danced.

As I looked at the diorama and vase, I couldn't help noticing the connection between the projects that had occupied my creative time: the embroidered Poincaré disks and the Wonderland diorama and vase. Each invites us to enter a world that challenges our expectations. Both encourage curiosity and exploration. And both remind us that there is beauty in looking beyond the familiar.

Lewis Carroll, after all, was not only an author but also a mathematician. While scholars continue to debate the extent to which Alice's Adventures in Wonderland reflects mathematical ideas of the nineteenth century, it seems fitting that Wonderland and geometry should occasionally cross paths. Perhaps it was inevitable that the Cheshire Cat would eventually find its way into one of my Poincaré disks.

I created two versions of the Poincaré disk featuring the Cheshire Cat sitting mischievously inside. Reflecting Alice's ever changing world, the Cheshire Cat appears in two sizes, one large and one small. 

Both pieces were stitched as hot pads, combining mathematics and whimsy with a practical purpose. They can be used to protect surfaces from hot pots and dishes.

For the Mathematically Curious

Each design began as a TurtleStitch program built around a key geometric fact: in the Poincaré disk, the hyperbolic equivalent of a straight line appears as a circular arc that meets the boundary circle at a right angle. To draw these arcs, I calculated the radius and sweep angle of each arc from a chosen angular step, the spacing between successive points where neighboring geodesics meet the boundary circle. By varying that spacing, I could create patterns of different densities, ranging from closely woven networks to the spare, cusp-like structure of the Cheshire Cat disk.

All three designs share the defining features of the Poincaré disk model: the boundary circle represents points at infinity, geodesics appear as circular arcs meeting the boundary at right angles, and objects of equal hyperbolic size appear progressively smaller as they approach the edge.

Wonderland meets Mathematics

My embroidered/sketched Poincaré disks, my granddaughter's Wonderland diorama and vase may appear to be entirely different creations. Yet they share a common theme: the joy of discovering that imagination and mathematics are not separate worlds at all. Sometimes they meet in the most unexpected places. 

And sometimes, all it takes is a turtle, a needle, a sketch pen and a curious rabbit to lead the way....a fitting reminder that mathematics and Wonderland are never very far apart.

Following the White Rabbit: Torus Blossoms and Arithmetic Spirals in a Wonderland Inspired Vase

 I have some thrilling news to share! A few months ago, I received an email from the American Mathematical Society asking to include my artwork,  Torus Blossoms in a Sliceform Vase in their 2027 Calendar of Mathematical Imagery. I immediately said yes.

While that honor was a milestone on its own, a beautiful coincidence recently brought everything full circle. I just watched my granddaughter perform as a colorful parrot in a ballet production of Alice in Wonderland at Towson University. It struck me right then: Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Dodgson, a mathematician. Suddenly, the threads of mathematics, art, and family all connected into something magical. Inspired by that moment, I created this Wonderland-themed vase.

 Torus Blossoms and Arithmetic Spirals in a Wonderland Inspired Vase

The hexagonal vase features six panels, each depicting a scene from Wonderland's mystical forest. The beloved characters of Alice, the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, and the Cheshire Cat appear among enchanting woodland scenes. Perched in one of the trees is a colorful parrot, a small tribute to my granddaughter's role in the ballet. 

The panels and flowers look beautiful on every side.

Alice and the White Rabbit

The parrot and an enchanted mushroom

The Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter

The bouquet combines several torus blossoms, including some from the arrangement that will appear in the AMS 2027 Calendar of Mathematical Imagery, together with a new pointed torus blossom added to my growing collection. 

The new torus blossom

The tightly wound core at the center of the torus blossom forms a spiral, echoing Alice's journey through Wonderland, where perspectives shift, sizes change, and ordinary rules give way to delightful surprises.

The remaining flowers are based on arithmetic spirals coded in TurtleStitch. With each turn, the distance traveled gradually increases, producing elegant spiral forms that transform beautifully into paper blossoms.

These spirals also remind me of Alice's descent down the rabbit hole. Beginning with broad outer loops and winding inward to increasingly smaller ones, they evoke the strange journey into Wonderland, where Alice repeatedly changes size and encounters a world where familiar rules no longer apply. In that sense, the spirals and blooms seem to capture the wonder and transformation at the heart of her adventure.

You can read more about their design, coding, and assembly in this earlier post.

The arithmetic spiral was rolled into a circle to produce a beautiful bloom at the top right.

If this Wonderland-inspired project has sparked your imagination, here are the instructions for creating your own mystical vase.

The Design

This project builds upon the hexagonal vase design I shared in an earlier blog posting (you can find the original tutorial here). The six-sided structure provides the perfect canvas for the mystical forest.

Add a multicolored LED tea light in the center for a magical glow. It makes a wonderful centerpiece or a cozy accent for any room in your home.

Materials You'll Need

• Neenah 65 lb Metallic White Pearl cardstock from Office Depot for the panels
• 65 lb green cardstock for the stems
• Vellum for backing the panels
• Battery-operated LED tea light (optional)

Cut Files

You'll need an electronic cutting machine to create this project:

• Silhouette users: Download the .Studio file [link to file]

• Cricut users: Download the SVG file [link to file]

Note: The SVG file extends beyond the initial viewable area. Simply zoom out to see the complete design.

Assembly Instructions

• Follow the assembly directions from the hexagonal vase project to construct your base structure
• Place your battery-operated LED tea light inside

Your Wonderland Awaits

Funny how life weaves unexpected connections together. An email from the AMS, a ballet performance, Lewis Carroll's mathematical imagination, and a new paper torus all converged to inspire this project.

Follow the White Rabbit...your own Wonderland adventure awaits!

An Alice in Wonderland Diorama: A Mystical Wonderland

  

An Alice in Wonderland Diorama: A Mystical Wonderland

My five-year-old granddaughter will soon be dancing in a ballet production of Alice in Wonderland. Watching her perform in the role of a colorful parrot is sure to be an absolute delight! To celebrate her debut and capture some of the magic of the performance, I designed and built a three-dimensional paper diorama inspired by the whimsical world of Wonderland. The scene depicts a mystical forest filled with enchanting trees and features many of the story's beloved characters, including Alice, the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, and the Cheshire Cat. A parrot is nestled among the Wonderland characters as a special tribute to my granddaughter's role in the production.

Eight double thickness tabs keep the diorama scenes together.

Pretty paper is glued to the front of the first scene.

The tabs slide into the sides of the scenes.

I used Neenah brand 65 lb White Gold metallic cardstock from Office Depot.  I recommend using a new blade and overcut to cut out this design as the intricate pieces might not cut correctly.

Here is the .Studio file.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Qa4DvPP6awrfSBF-d5Xwp9zNC0Atdq4n/view?usp=sharing

Here is the SVG. The file goes beyond the viewable area.  Zoom out to see the entire file.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ir9cH_t2b89rqyiTsTgdIJyeR8n4NKox/view?usp=sharing

A dreamy mystical wonderland is produced when the five scenes are placed together.