This month, when so many students are going back to school, seems like the perfect time to highlight Rachel Braun’s book, Embroidery and Sacred Text: New Designs in Judaic Needlework, in which Rachel draws on principles of mathematics to develop needlework designs that explore Jewish spirituality.

Rachel teaches high school math and statistics, and she’s amassed a collection of rarified graph paper samples that has earned her a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.

As a needlework artist, she draws on mathematical principles to develop works that explore the Bible and Jewish liturgy. In 2014 one of her works, Bamidbar: In the Wilderness, was included in an exhibit on math and fiber arts organized by the American Mathematical Society.

Embroidery and Sacred Text was first released in 2016, but Rachel’s lessons for exploring Judaism through needlework are timeless. The book explores a number of Rachel’s works of needle art and also presents forty motifs that you can incorporate into your own designs. Rachel even includes ten original Hebrew and English embroidery fonts.

You can find Rachel’s book through the independent bookstore group Indiebound and at Amazon.