Excluding the obscure (11-agons etc.), there are six different types of polygons can be knit from the centre out:

• Triangles
• Squares
• Pentagons
• Hexagons
• Heptagons
• Octagons

For the most part, the current crop of knitting publications only address how to knit a centre out square and show only the geometric method (think Kerry Blue Shawl from Martha Waterman).

Joan Schrouder's Shaping Shawls class (recommended) has a killer recipe for a centre out triangle using a geometric increase method.

Mary Thomas's Knitting Patterns doesn't have Joan's geometric triangle but makes up for it by offering:

• One method to knit a centre out Triangle
• Four (or 5) different ways to knit a centre out Square
• Two different ways to knit a Pentagon
• Two different ways to knit a Hexagon (and avoid the bump out)
• Three different ways to knit an Octagon

To my knowledge, the heptagon instructions, and indeed knitting heptagons are otherwise uncharted territory as I've discovered two ways to knit a Heptagon.

Some new general rules

For the most part, each polygon can be knit using either a geometric or swirl increase method.

The geometric method usually involves double increases and the swirl method involves single increases.

The usual starting number of stitches is 2x the number of sides.

Squares offer additional construction variations that other polygons do not.

Triangles and heptagons seem to have the most limited construction methods.

The every other row increase rule doesn't hold up for all polygons or all methods.

Although it feels somewhat uncomfortable, and not everyone has a stockpile of dps, it is generally easier to knit a polygon with n+1 needles where n = the number of sides of the polygon to be knitted. When that is not an option, use markers to indicate which stitches correspond to the each of the polygon's sides.

We'll explore each of the polygons and the methods used to produce them in the course of this seminar.