Pattern Recognition: connecting Thread

I love patterns.

Not just the kind in math books or art galleries, but the kind that show up quietly, whispering through the everyday—the folds of my sheets, the stitching on a cushion, the weaves in a blanket. Sometimes I catch myself staring a little too long at a piece of fabric, captivated. Mesmerized. Moved. Why? Because patterns aren’t just decoration—they’re stories. They’re language. They’re memory.

There’s something universal about them.

Every culture speaks in patterns. You see it in hand-woven textiles, ceremonial dress, painted pottery, architectural tiles. Repetition becomes rhythm. Symmetry becomes song. Whether it’s West African kente cloth, Japanese sashiko stitching, Indigenous beadwork, or Art Deco wallpaper—patterns carry something ancient, something shared.

But it’s not just in the things we make.

The world itself speaks in patterns.

The waves peak, ebb, and flow in harmonic rhythm—hypnotic, shimmering in the sunlight.

The moon pulls the tides. The tides pull us.

The patterns of day and night set the pulse.

Rhythmic chaos—measured yet wild—offering a way to understand, a place to rest our heads and our thoughts.

Our minds reach for pattern—it’s a human phenomenon that stretches through time itself.

I used to think maybe I was just “really into” design. But I’ve come to understand it runs deeper. I’m fascinated with how patterns connect us. How our brains need them. How we search for them in clouds, dreams, music, relationships—anything to make sense of the world.

It’s comforting, isn’t it?

To realize that being mesmerized by a pattern doesn’t make you strange—it makes you human. Because in some small way, we’re all trying to trace the threads back to something familiar, something meaningful, something beautiful.

So yes, I love patterns.

In my sheets.

In my cushions.

in my clothing! 

In the sunlit waves.

In the turning sky.

In the folds of culture.

In the fabric of us all.