## Thursday, March 3, 2011

### The Fibonacci Sequence and Knitting...

In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers are the numbers in the following integer sequence:
Sunflower head displaying florets in spirals of 34 and 55 around the outside
$0,\;1,\;1,\;2,\;3,\;5,\;8,\;13,\;21,\;34,\;55,\;89,\;144,\; \ldots\;$

The first two Fibonacci numbers are 0 and 1, and each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two.
A little history according to my favorite online reference "book" -
Wikipedia

The Fibonacci sequence is named after Leonardo of Pisa, who was known as Fibonacci.  Fibonacci numbers are used in the analysis of financial markets, in strategies such as Fibonacci retracement, and are used in computer algorithms such as the Fibonacci search technique and the Fibonacci heap data structure.  They also appear in biological settings, such as branching in trees, arrangement of leaves on a stem, the fruit spouts of a pineapple, the flowering of artichoke, an uncurling fern and the arrangement of a pine cone.

Some pictures of this seqence occurring in nature

 Sunflower head displaying florets in  spirals of 34 and 55 around the outside

Now you may ask what the heck does this have to do with knitting??  Well I'll tell you..  The Fibonacci sequence is known to be pleasing to the eye.  Why?  I think, in my opinion, since this sequence happens so often in  nature it naturally looks pleasing to us.  Make sense?

I am going to use this in my most recent project: a Christmas Stocking
(Yes, I know that winter is almost over but I am trying to get ahead this season.)  I will be using this sequence to determine when the color changes will occur.  I will be using 2 or 3 colors.  I'll keep you posted and we'll see how this really turns out.