Nature's Numbers - Numerical structure, beauty, and pattern existed long before humans named the numbers. Studying patterns in nature leads us to discover the Fibonacci numbers. The Italian mathematician
Eduoard Lucas, an eighteenth-century mathematician named the number pattern 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89...the Fibonacci sequence, after Leonardo de Pisa. The number pattern shows up in the plants in the quilt: the sunflower, the pineapple, the coneflower, the pinecone, the leaf lettuce and the artichoke. When counted, the spirals in these plants are always Fibonacci numbers. The cross-section of the celtry
plant illustrates how nature uses the 137.5 degree angle in positioning stems on the plant. The 137.5 degree angle is related to the Fibonacci numbers. A short video of this quilt can be found here.

     


Magnetite and Hematite - safe drinking water is paramount to human survival.
Natural and anthropogenic sources of heavy metals reaching drinking water sources may lead to undesirable health effects of the human population. Current bulk treatment technologies do not adequately remove all heavy metals from solution, are expensive, and use many resources. Nanoparticle metal oxides, such as hematite and magnetite, are being explored in environmental engineering applications for their metallic
characteristics and great aDsorbing capabilities. Synthesized in nature and in the laboratory, metal oxides at the nanoparticle scale (one nanometer is one billionth of a meter) may prove to be alternative, cost-effective, environmentally-friendly and highly efficient reusable sorbents to remove heavy metal pollutants from drinking water sources. The surface area to volume ratio increases as the particles are brought down to nanoscale, causing some of their physical properties (e.g. magnetism, sorption capabilities)
to be dramatically enhanced.




Tiled Torus - The work of John Sharp and Craig S. Kaplan at past Bridges Conferences inspired me to create Tiled Torus.  The tiles morph  from left to right along with morphing from the top to the bottom of the quilt. The parquet deformation turned out to be a design that would tile a torus.  I noticed that the left and the right hand side of the design were continuous.  This is also true about the top and the bottom of the quilt! A short video of this quilt can be found here.





Golden Rectangle - It is difficult to pinpoint the time of origin of the golden rectangle, but most certainly the Golden Rectangledates back to at least 1,000 B.C. Descartes studied the golden rectangle thoroughly in 1638. Jaques Bernoulli was fascinated by its’ properties also. His statement “eadem mutata resurgo” refers to the fact that the angle formed from the tangent to the curve remains at a constant angle throughout. The spiral inscribed in the Golden Rectangle 1 quilt is an approximate logarithmic spiral. 
    A short video of this quilt can be found here.



 

   

Finding Archimedes - A short video of this quilt can be found here.

  
Close-up of face. 








Elaine eagerly awaited her fourth grandchild's birth.
Cam Hunter, born February 15th, 2007, has been such a pleasure for grandma
and her family. As Cam grows, he will see that his quilt was designed using
the bear furniture in his nursery.





Sophia and Grandmother - Sophia Meier and grandmother were awaiting the
birth of Gabriella Elaine Meier. During the waiting period, Sophia and grandmother
decorated this quilt! What a lovely memory of a special time in our lives.





To Jackson - My grandson Jackson Cartwright was the inspiration behind this quilt.
His birth is a joy to his grandmother. So, I celebrated by quilting his handprints
and footprints into the fabric!