An intriguing botanical and textiles connection

You may already be familiar with the mathematics of creating textiles, aside from the obvious counting of stitches and rows. Did you know that plants share that mystery?

If you have been to the studio in Yell you will have seen Lucy McMullen's Whirlpool (left) woven out of Shetland wool and copper wire. The structure uses the Fibonnacci series of numbers which describes spirals in nature and is related to the Golden Section. If you want to delve more into this interesting, complex and wonderful series, including how it is appears in nature, have a look at this webpage and follow the links. 

This week another website has captured the imagination. Although it is old now (in internet terms, being from 2013) the joy of the interconnectedness of us all is finding these things out long after they have faded from common knowledge. So it has been with great delight that we have been exploring anew the mathematics of plants! Apart from the fun of reading about the creation of binary bonsai trees and seeing crochet sponges on Flickr  there is the excellent pastime of trying out some of the mathematics ourselves.