Here's another try at the concept, with some design tweaks. It sat
unfinished for several years in between knitting the pattern and closing
the top, and was finally finished in January 2013.
The design is a little bit more concocted than on the previous
automata patterns. I simulated it for a while and chose some candidates
that appealed to me.
Rule 109 is very easy to memorize, and well-behaved. Since a
two-wide stripe of white propagates, if you seed it with random input,
it'll sort itself into bands that repeat.
To allow for the holes, I cast on six extra stitches part way up, in
one of the white stripes, and knitted them in a checker pattern (so that
there would be no long yarn-carries on the back).
I discovered quite by accident that sewing with a straight stitch
sewing machine, set to a very short stitch length, will stabilize
knitted fabric in a way that's all but invisible, since the thread sinks
into the fabric. I sewed four rows to each side of the opening (at
half-stitch widths) before cutting, and you'd expect to see it in this
picture, but it's hard to spot.
After that, I simply sewed down (by machine) the flap, so that it
stays to the inside. The result is fairly stiff, slightly stretchy -
the only flaw seems to be that it's a little longer than the adjacent
fabric.
The top decreases feel and sit awkwardly; for next time I want to go back in the direction of hat-like, and come up with something less boxy.
Yarn is Patons Canadiana, size 4 needles, 110 stitches around the bottom. Tea pot shown is 1L/"6 cup".