Spinning Fibonacci (or Pingala)

The colourway Lightning Rod from Sweet Georgia yarns fiber club was an interesting take on pop art. With bold, playful colours, I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do with it. There were clear colour repeats so a fractal was an obvious choice. You can read about fractal spins here if they’re new to you. But I thought I’d do something different and attempt to create a Fibonacci spin. The Fibonacci math sequence begins with 0 and 1. Adding each number to the previous number results in the endless sequence, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, …

I began by separating the braid into colour repeats. With a scale I weighed each repeat and continued to split them until I had weights of 1g, 1g, 2g, 3g, 5g, 8g, 13g, 25g, and 38g. I loosely tied a knot at the end of each weight of fiber to keep track of the direction they came off the braid and to know which direction to spin them in later. There was some leftover fiber which I put aside for a later date.

I was able to pull off individual repeats of colour in all weights up to and including 13 grams. For 25 and 38 grams, I was going to have to combine some repeats.

From left to right, lengths of fiber in 1g, 1g, 2g, 3g, 5g, 8g, 13g, 25g, and 38g.

I took all of these weights to the blending board for dizzing. The smaller ones were straight forward but the two larger weights required a bit more effort. They were gently attenuated (stretched) and laid together side by side on the blending board to diz together. This kept the colour repeat together in one long length.

Fibonacci spiral of dizzed fiber, loose and airy, ready for spinning.

I spun these up in order into a singles on one bobbin. I spun a second bobbin of undyed merino/silk and plied the two together.

The yarn is beautiful but I still don’t know what to do with it! I think this needs to be a weave in an art piece where the Fibonacci progression is the clear star. I’m working on ideas!