Above: Kate Findlay's majestic 'Breakthrough' quilt.
My husband, a physicist-turned-programmer, shows occasional glimmers of interest in craft matters. But he rarely sends me actual craft-related email. So when he said he'd come across some amazing quilts in a physics journal, I had to pay attention.
What can I say, the man is right! These intense, geometric quilts by teacher and crafter Kate Findlay, recently published in Symmetry Magazine, are inspired by the workings of the Large Hadron Collider and by her musings on sub-atomic particles.
Left: Kate Findlay's crafty forebear, 19th century science quilt superstar Ellen Harding Baker.
Using appliqué , some serious patchwork skills and lovely, unusual fabrics, Findlay makes quilts that celebrate the inner beauty of our universe and of the tools we use to explore it.
The Henley-on-Thames-based teacher and her creations are getting major props from the physics community, as you can tell from this rather worshipful Popular Science interview.
Seeing these, I couldn't help but think about one of my favorite quilts of all time, Ellen Harding Baker's 1876 solar system quilt, currently housed in the Smithsonian Museum.
Used as a tool to teach women about astronomy - one of the few sciences considered acceptable for 19th century women - it manages, as do Findlay's quilts, to be both informative AND beautiful.
Who'd have thought that quilting and science had such vast potential for artistic fusion? I can't say I'm surprised - what do you think?
Above: 19th century geek craft by Ellen Harding Baker.
[Images of the Baker quilt © The Smithsonian; images of Kate Findlay's quilt copyright Kate Findlay.]
