math pattern art: mathematical quilting & design

Mathematical quilting and math pattern art & design: shown here are 17th century Italian quilts made from mathematical patterns.

Yesterday’s Hamming metric (or Hamming Error Correcting Code) quilt got us thinking. Turns out there is a branch of quilting making (or perhaps a branch of mathematics if you will), “mathematical quilting.” It looks to math — polynominals, Rule 90 cellular automatons, etc., for inspiration in quilt making and pattern art.

Shown here is so called “Florentine work” because these popular quilt designs are based on mathematical patterns originally found on chairs in the Bargello Palace (today an  art museum) in Florence Italy. These chairs date to at least the 17th century, if not earlier. There are many types of these quilts, which are typically very colorful. The quilting requires precise counting of squares so that the pattern art design conforms to the mathematical pattern chosen.

So yesterday’s crazy quilt, in which math creates art, isn’t unique.

A version of this article originally appeared as a photo post on our Instagram feed.

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