One of the recurring mysteries in my life with a fiber artist is that, from time to time, my jeans vanish.

It is true that I sometimes throw them out when they get worn – you will undoubtedly hear that this is where they go –  but it is also true that the question “do you need those jeans you are wearing now?” while I am still wearing them suggests something now raises alarms.

“Of course,” I huff, “I”m wearing them?” Oh, she says, eyeing them hungrily, the way she looks at an ice cream cone in the summer. I know they are doomed.

I have a stack of jeans in my dresser and it will be no surprise to any of you that I have no idea how many jeans I have or where they go when they disappear. Today I had some insight, Maria invited me into her studio to see a beautiful and very creative quilt (it is already sold) and pointed out proudly that my jeans play a prominent role in the quilt, especially around the center.

The worn out parts around the center and below, she said, were the knee parts of my jeans, they are worn in a particular way that adds to the colors in her quilt. There is no sign of the rest of the jeans, although they may well pop up in a different quilt.

I am proud to see my jeans again, and used in so creative a way. I am happy they have been reborn and will live. I am uneasy about keeping the rest of them intact, art is a hungry enterprise, it is never really fed.

To be honest, I didn’t even know the jeans were gone. All of the knee parts of my jeans are worn.

A fair number of my articles of clothing – jeans, shirts, undershirts, even socks – have also vanished in this manner, and sometimes I see where they live now and wish them well, and sometimes I don’t.

As to my wife, she expresses shock and dismay when I ask how she got these jeans or shirts or underwear. She has no idea, she says,  showing me a mask of perfect innocence.

they just seem to show up in her studio. I wonder if I could get a commission for my jeans.