Stitches Midwest 2011 Sunday

So our last day had arrived. My sister had one class in the morning and then she had to fly home. I had an afternoon class and then in the late afternoon I would be driving back to Minnesota. It would be a long day, but a good one.

Our morning class was about Fascinating Fibonacci sequences with Laura Bryant. I had taken her class on Color in hand-dyed yarns and very much enjoyed it. I have to admit I was a bit mystified about what we could learn here. I remembered fibonacci series from math class and knew that if you join prior two numbers together you get the series. If you start with 1 and add it to itself you get 2. Then you add one to two to get three and 2 to 3 to get 5 etc. Laura made it sound quite mystical - a natural sequence that seems to inevitably be pleasing to the eye based on combinations found naturally in the real world in beings like the chambered nautilus (seen at this website):


or even in plants (from this one) ...


Laura walked us through a variety of patterns and color combinations:

And showed us some magnificent garments that she had made.


She doesn't seem to like to smile when she is demo-ing unfortunately and I do want to show this sample, so I can't cut her face off - just pretend she is smiling beautifully, because she has a lovely smile.

Here you can see two Fibonacci garments at once.


We had two assignments in class, working with multiple colors in a fibonacci sequence as below:


We were told that the variegated yarn would still be pleasing even though it disrupts the understanding of the stripes. It should still read as a 5. I don't know if the striping is naturally pleasing or not. (I do like the colors which combine some of her Prizm yarns and some left-over stuff that I brought along.)

Our second assignment was a diminishing fibonacci series that blended two series into each other. Below you can see the white blending into the red. The yarn is indulgence and it is truly decadent - a silk/wool/mohair with a gorgeous shine to it and a very soft hand. It was a joy to work with.


I can't claim much accuracy in my series, but I did continue to play with it since ihad not finished the sample in class and came up with an interesting stripe pattern. (I had accidentally skipped the section that was supposed to be two rows (and skipped from 1 to 3) but We were told we really only needed to have relationships of the numbers (and not have them necessarily in order). I think it worked out okay.(Click on the image to see a larger, sharper version)


After the class was over I had to say Goodbye to my sister. It was SO painful. We had had a wonderful time together and after she got in her car and headed off to the airport, I cried. Here is my last picture of her before she left!She thinks I go overboard on the picture taking!


Of course there was only one solution to the sadness of parting! The market, so off I went to spend time until my next class.