Night Sky Quilt – a Modern Art Quilt

Over the past few months, I have been quietly working on several projects. One of them was in collaboration with my two cousins, who are sisters. Neither one of them are avid quilters, but they joined in on quite a huge project with me to celebrate their mom. They put in many hours designing, drafting patterns, learning, cutting, ironing, sewing, ripping stitches, and all the other steps that go into a quilt.

We didn’t pick an easy pattern. I guess we could have made it easier on ourselves, since it was their first quilt, but that would have been boring. Here is my original sketch.

This was a quilt with many prayers and a purpose. When my cousin Sarah called me excitedly saying, “let’s make a family quilt, and let’s make it for my mom,” I can’t tell you how excited I was. I was excited because I adore my aunt, and also, I knew I would get to spend lots of time with my cousins making it.

It turned out huge at about 94 by 95 inches. We wanted to make it to fit her bed exactly. It took three people to hold it up. Here she is with her quilt:

Can I tell you how much I adore my aunt? She is that strong person who rallies around you, telling you it’s going to be okay and to keep going. She is wisdom when you feel a situation is beyond grace. She is joy. Her laugh lights up any room. She is loud. She does not love quietly from a distance, but she is right there with open arms. She is not that Christian who uses scripture to get her way and to put up a façade. She is that God-fearing woman who uses scripture to live and show that God is good and worth trusting. And, she is family. She is family that shows up. And I love her. Isn’t she so beautiful?!?

There are words of inspiration, scriptures, and even song lyrics everywhere. I pray that if she ever feels down or tired that she reads through the quilt and remembers how loved she is.

There are also lots of cats in this quilt. She loves cats. They are in the sky, trees, and even in the windows of one of the houses. They are so cute. The only thing that could have made this quilt better would have been to include a free kitty with it. Thanks Heather Ross for making adorable kitty fabric.

Finally, here is the back. It was made from Anna Maria Horner cotton voile fabrics that I have been collecting over the past few years. This means the back of the quilt feels like butter.

Thanks for reading! I pray everyone has a prosperous new year, filled with many memories of love and happiness.