Saturday, January 24, 2009

Fibonacci Sequence Scarf

The past couple of weeks I have been playing with message drafts and Fibonacci sequences. The scarf here is the result. If you aren’t familiar with the Fibonacci Sequence there is an excellent description on Leigh’s Fiber Journal.

I wanted to used different shades of the same yarn and happened to have a bag of yarn that I picked up our annual knitting retreat garage sale (thanks Katie). The bag had several greens, yellows and burgundies yarns. These colors were perfect for this project as I was also looking for a project that would remind me of the fabulous fall colors we saw in North Carolina last fall. The texture of the yarn wasn’t as soft as I usually use for my scarves so I washed a sample to see if it would bleed and soften. It didn’t bleed and it did get softer. I’m mostly happy with how it turned out. I did have a boo-boo in the home stretch, but as my DH points out – only I know it’s a boo-boo and not a design feature.

I’ve always been interested in name and message drafts but found getting a good sequence with the word or message I wanted was a little challenging. I tend to want to use just short 4-letter words (no, not that kind of 4-letter word!) which could be my problem. I did get a workable pattern using some of Ralph Griswold’s sequences and used one of those in the scarf shown here. This is the one I used for Fibonacci scarf.

But for the next scarf that I want to do, using Mr. Griswold’s sequences just didn’t work very well. So I decided to strike out on my own using an online sequence generator. I had the generator give me a list of numbers between 1 and 26 in a random order and with no repeats. In Excel, with the alphabet in column one, I pasted the numbers from the sequence generator in the next column and then in the third column I assigned shafts. The results were:
# 1 x l k u d r c
# 2 y o w e s q
#3 m h b a z i
#4 j v p f t n g

I added a point twill threading (I think) in between the word as I repeated it across. The draft I ended up with is very similar to other drafts that I have seen but I didn’t expect anything no one else had ever thought. I just wanted something to reflect the word I had in mind and for me to be the only one who knows :-).

Right now I am slowly putting the warp for a laprug on my floor loom, have the warp for the above scarf ready to slap on my 8 harness table loom, am winding the warp for a summer and winter project to go on my 4 harness table loom and am patiently waiting for DH to finished getting the rust of the reeds for my other floor loom. And it has lots of other work that needs to be done on it!

Happy Weaving!

9 comments:

Woven Spun said...

Love the scarf. I also enjoy weaving in hidden meanings into scarves. I am working on a new woven word scarf tonight and can't wait to actually get to start weaving on it (hopefully tomorrow)

Anonymous said...

Very cool, Holly! It is great seeing that yarn turn into something so beautiful. I am going to have to start seeing my knitting yarn stash in a different light!

Leigh said...

Holly, what a fascinating post. I am honored that you linked to my Fibonacci post! Thanks to for the link to the random sequence generator, it's one I hadn't seen yet and now I need to give it a try. And your scarf, is wonderful. Beautifu job.

Diana said...

Hey Holly, this is a great scarf, I love the detail in the twill with the colors. Maybe some day I'll post something as nice. Great Job!
You should have seen Katies face when she realized what she could have done with that yarn. L. Diana

Life Looms Large said...

The scarf is beautiful!!

How is your husband removing the rust from the reeds for your loom? I have 3 rusty reeds that I need to either tackle or replace!

Sue

PS: I'll check back here for comments if the reed answer is a quick one!

Holly said...

To get the rust off -- he used Naval Jelly, washed it off, dried the reeds so rust wouldn't reform and then used an extra, extra fine weight sandpaper between the teeth (the sandpaper was about the same weight as an emery board). Lots of work. What a great guy!

Life Looms Large said...

Holly,

Thanks for the scoop on cleaning the reeds. It does sound really hard - especially the sandpaper part. I bought the loom thinking I'd buy new reeds for it, but some parts of cleaning it up have been easier than expected....so I was hoping maybe there was some well-kept reed-cleaning secret!

I guess I just need to figure out how to get my husband to take on the project!!

Thanks!!!
Sue

Holly said...

Start with the Naval Jelly. That works for most people. These reeds were pretty rusting.

Life Looms Large said...

Thanks for the naval jelly tip! I'll give it a try and see what happens. It would be great if I could salvage these....but I'm not sure I have the patience to use sandpaper or emery board!

Sue