Sew Daphne: Textile work -- Number Meditation-- Oh Solo Double Trio

I don't remember who said that the quilt series on numbers was a kind of mediation, but I suddenly saw the collection in a new way.

First of all the setting was in the Green Ash grove in Wainborn Park. Someone brought an iPhone & a tree identifier site helped. The tree-name resonated with me. As a child my first song that I could harmonize to (aside from rounds) was The Ash Grove. It was on page 39 of the Home & Community Songbook that I grew up with.

Then, though some of the quilts have some lessons in them, some just are & are very simple.

The 18 Quilts and details I'm posting here. This is work done intermittently over an 8 year period. This is a very dense blog entry. I hope it's not too much. First the setting....

The Green Ash Grove after the show... or before!

Then the quilts.

I'm doing them "in order".

Each number gets a special treatment.

A Lot of Nothing

This quilt & the quilt about 1 echo an old quilting tradition called 'white work'.

We Are One

Double Double

....the back, detail..... a two-stitch quilting pattern....

Three Points of Interest

The list ends, "....but this quilt is not about any of that, it is about 3 points of interest." And yes, I typed the lettering onto the cloth using an old typewriter!

...with the light coming through it in the park....X-ray-like....

My Four Lenses for Looking at Numbers:

math, science, language, & culture

..... the back, detail.... four cloths made by me....

5: Tying an Overhand Knot, Golden Rectangles, & More

The first Golden Rectangle is the one with star-fabric.

...the star-cloth rectangle gets its dimensions from the specially knotted ribbon below.... an edge & a diagonal....

.... detail of the back & the logarithmic spiral the emerges....

Hexominoes

July 7 Birthdays

from 1940 to 2010, almost

....detail of back....

Symmetric Numbers

The first symmetric numbers are 0, 1 & 8. Symmetric 2-digit numbers are 11, 69, 88, & 96.
Below:1, 2, 3 & 4-digit symmetric numbers

5-digit symmetric numbers... I switched orientation of the list...

...detail of back & a few 6-digit symmetric numbers

The Magic of Nine

This is a complex quilt with lots of teaching in it. I'm not going to repeat it all here. The gist of it is that there are some amazing patterns hidden in the multiplication table. The detail images aren't 'in order'. Sorry!

Fingers & Toes

....detail of back....the seeds remind me of the powers of 10....1, 10, 100, 1000, 10000,100000, ... etc

Eleven-Point Stars

some machine quilting, some by hand....

12-Hour Clock

....for some reason this one was never properly photographed....

...the righthand one is before it was quilted up....

This square-with-a-circle cut into it was a module that was used in the Temperance Quilts. The colors of the anti-alcohol campaign were blue & white & many of the quilt patterns were called Drunkard's Walk (or Path). My modules are different sizes.

Deck of Cards (4 x 13)

....I waggishly & seriously put the queen first....

....detail of back....

What Grew From Mathematics

This quilt was made from page 42 of Birkhoff & MacLean. This book I studied for several math courses I took. I had MacLean as a teacher at the University of Chicago. I loved him, great teacher!

Page 42 is about the development of the rational numbers. The title, What Grew from Mathematics, refers to my transformation from mathematician to artist. This Oh, Solo, Double, Trio project is about my transformation from artist back to mathematician!

The Look of Numbers

...this is actually another lens I use for looking at numbers, the graphic lens..... I swoon for these shapes...

The Colophon

...my homage to John Trivett who urged me to do quilts with patterns from work we did with the Cuisenaire rods. I've often said, "I got married because of the rods."