Can I get a Whoop-Whoop?? Fibonacci Rules!

Hi, all!

It's Friday again, and I hope you've got something to share with everyone today!  Remember - it doesn't have to be a finish, just something you worked on that you're proud of!  (And you can link up anytime up until Saturday at midnight.)  I'm so happy to see that lots of people linked up last week - I hope you're checking out some or all of the links and leaving lots of bloggy love for your fellow linkers.....

It's been a different kind of week around my place - Lilli is out of preschool for two weeks for spring break, so she's been around a lot more - and that means less time to sew.  On the other hand, I've had the chance to enjoy the spring weather with a little fashionista....

I am told by Miss Lilli that this IS the proper outfit to wear while walking your tin lizard on a spring day.....

My niece is here visiting me, and my "whoop whoop" project this week is a joint project we've been working on - a gift for her pregnant mathematics professor, who is a number theorist.  Before I show it to you, though, you need to know a little bit about the background... 

Fibonacci was a 12th century mathematician who is perhaps best known for a simple series of numbers called the Fibonacci numbers in his honour.

The series begins with 0 and 1. After that, use the simple rule:

Add the last two numbers to get the next.

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987,...

You might ask where this came from? In Fibonacci's day, mathematical competitions and challenges were common. It was in just this type of competition that the following problem arose:

Beginning with a single pair of rabbits, if every month each productive pair bears a new pair, which becomes productive when they are 1 month old, how many rabbits will there be after n months?

The rabbit breeding problem that caused Fibonacci to write about the sequence may be unrealistic but the Fibonacci numbers really do appear in nature. For example, some plants branch in such a way that they always have a Fibonacci number of growing points. Flowers often have a Fibonacci number of petals, daisies can have 34, 55 or even as many as 89 petals.


What this means for quilting is that if you use the Fibonacci sequence in your quilting, it will have an innate harmony to it.  This is useful for figuring the widths for multiple borders, etc.


Anyway.....  I had made this pillow based on the Fibonacci sequence for my niece for Christmas, and she decided she wanted to make a Fibonacci-inspired quilt for her teacher's baby.  She bought a focus fabric and showed up on my doorstep during spring break so we could put something together.  A little bit of time spent figuring out a pattern on graph paper, a short trip to the LQS for coordinating solids, some time spent piecing and quilting, and voila.....

.... we present Oh, Fibonacci!  As you can see, the strips are cut to the beginning numbers of the Fibonacci sequence (2", 3", 5", and 8") and alternated focus print to solids.  The resulting strip set is then cut across the strips in the same sequence, and then alternate strips are reversed to create the patchwork pattern.  


This came out so much cuter than I had originally envisioned - the pillow didn't make the same checkerboard pattern as the quilt, so that was an unexpected and pleasing result!


I also finally finished the tutorial for this quilt...

The pattern is a simple disappearing nine-patch with a sashing twist - it will be featured, along with some other disappearing nine-patches, Saturday on Stash Manicure where I'll be guest blogging.  But you can get a jump on the competition and get a copy of the pdf pattern e-mailed to you if you want it - just leave a comment asking me to send you a copy (and be sure if you're a no-reply blogger to leave me your e-mail address!)  I've been promising this tutorial to some folks for about two months now - and it's finally done!! Woohoo!!

So those are my finishes for the week - can I get a whoop whoop??


And now the question is - - - what have you been working on this week?  Link up and show off!!


Later!




Sarah