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Dressmaker invents new maths shape – The Lily-Joan – that ‘disrupts order’

Sophie Leroux, a keen seamstress, has solved a long-standing maths problem through her love of quilting.

Mathematicians believe this is significant because it breaks usual patterns, without leaving gaps or overlaps, and may help physicists understand the structure and behaviour of atoms.

Ms Leroux’s discovery is all the more amazing because she has no mathematical training and admits to only achieving a D in her maths GCSE.

However, she views the world ‘differently’ after suffering a brain injury aged 18 and finds sewing a pleasurable way to express the geometric shapes and numbers she sees in daily life.

She included the new shape in a memory quilt she made for her stepdaughter, Wren Ellis-Bailey, nine, following the death of her mother, Carley Ellis, from breast cancer in 2024.

Ms Leroux, who is five months pregnant, has christened the shape ‘The Lily-Joan’ in memory of a former best friend, Lily, and her old mentor, Joan, who inspired her love of sewing.

Her husband, Dr Adam Bailey, 29, who was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Mathematics from Stanford University after writing his dissertation on geometric shapes, had recognised the significance of the pattern and sent a photo to his former supervisor, Professor Robert Hunt.

Professor Hunt commissioned further research from a fellow mathematician at Stanford and a group of computer scientists.

Ms Leroux, who owns a dressmaking and quilting shop in Clifton Village, Bristol, said: ‘I used to be afraid of all the numbers I could see, but Adam has shown me the beauty in maths.’

Dr Bailey, a maths teacher at Bristol City Academy, said: ‘Sophie and I first met as teenagers and fell in love, but we parted under traumatic circumstances.

‘However, as a keen mathematician, I always believed in the Mobius strip theory – that even if we travelled in different directions, we would eventually loop back to each other, however long it took.

‘That’s because true love, like maths, will always find a way.’