Hello, Fibonacci!

So, I've started a new quilt project. Yes, I know, I'm in the middle of my QOV quilt and Easy Street. Not to mention a few other things that are sitting on the back burner. But I have a good reason for this new one!

Many years ago, I made lap-quilts for my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law, using Christmas fabrics. There were 6 other relatives I wanted to make Christmas quilts for. One is finished, but not given to the person because I wanted to give them all at the same time. I cut out the fabrics for one before I got pregnant with my 3rd child. (He's in middle school now, so you know this was awhile ago.) I am in various stages with 4 of the 5 that still need to be made. My Easy Street is one of these 4. My goal is to finish all these quilts for this Christmas. I think I will need all year to get them done LOL.

So when I heard that one of the local quilt shops is having a challenge called "Fibonacci's Revenge," I decided to try it with Christmas fabrics in my stash. It is based on the Fibonacci number sequence of 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13... You add the previous two numbers to get the next number. Apparently this number sequence shows up in nature a lot.

For this challenge, you first have to start with a 12" (finished size) block of your choosing. I love using a star motif in Christmas quilts, so I thought the Rising Star would be an appropriate center block. For the inner star, I used a gold scroll fabric and the outer star is a beautiful green Bali. The background is a light cream tone-on-tone that doesn't show up real well in the photo.

One of the requirements for the challenge is to buy at least one yard of their "challenge fabric." There were three neutrals you could choose from. The other two choices were a bit too Civil War-ish for me, so I went with this cream and tan Moda Marbles fabric. It's a bit darker than I would have chosen, but I guess that's part of the fun of a challenge, right?

So, each month you go to the store and get your directions for the month. We will be adding a border each month to make a medallion-style quilt. If you bring in your progress from the previous month, your directions are free. If you do not have any progress, you have to pay $3.00 for that month's directions. Hopefully this money incentive will keep me on track. 

For January's border, you need to make a 4" border using only rectangles (squares are allowed in the corners if necessary). You have to use some of the challenge fabric, plus at least one fabric from the center block, plus add at least one fabric color. I will be adding red.

I stayed up later than I should have last night, sketching out different border possibilities. I think I'm going to go with the one on the left side of this photo. I was inspired by one of the quilts that Judy from Patchwork Times made and sent to Alycia for Quilts of Valor. Alycia showed a photo of the quilt at this post. 

I'm planning on making this a "controlled scrappy" with Christmas fabrics. I will probably make the borders my leaders/enders while I finish up my QOV. 

Happy stitching!