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It was Tony Stoneburner, standing on a hilltop in Maine, who proclaimed that “needlework” would be a fitting theme for an acupuncture practice in the Arts and Crafts Capital of Kentucky! Judy Rector, Berea College mathematics professor and quilter, proposed the Friendship Star pattern. The four-pointed stars of the pattern appear to tumble and twirl through space, appropriate for an approach which is all about the movement of Qi.

The five stars in the nine-patch block represent the Five Elements or Phases of Traditional Chinese Medicine and also correspond to the five people present for treatment in InnerSpace, the Community Acupuncture Berea group treatment room.

Friendship Star is an old quilt pattern. Created from triangles and a square, the blocks are easy for inexperienced quilters to stitch. This pattern was often used for a “friendship quilt,” a gift for a family moving on, with room in the center square for embroidered signatures of friends in the community left behind.

Interestingly, the Friendship Star pattern is very similar to an origami windmill or pinwheel, another geometric design that incorporates a sense of movement. (Thanks to Patrick Flannery-Reilly for noticing this!)

Like acupuncture, origami, the ancient art of paper folding, came to Japan from China, brought by Buddhist monks in the 6th century, it involves carefully folding a single sheet of paper, without using glue or scossors, to form a beautiful and recognizable design, often from the natural world.