As I mentioned before, I noticed that I had way too many navy fabrics. There wasn't a lot of any of them, just fat quarters or strips left over from another quilt. I left them on my desk for a few days trying to decide what to do with them. My desk is upstairs, and as I was sitting up there one night working on something else (maybe my daughter's emergency pillow project), I looked out the window. It was dark but I could see squares of orangy yellow from a few windows at an apartment building a block away.
I started cutting the fabric into strips. I tried a few blocks of an orange fabric I had to do an improv layout of what I saw out the window, but liked narrow strips better. It gave a pop of color, like those windows, and also reminded me of something from the Bible. Which doesn't usually happen with a quilt, at least not consciously.
2 Corinthians 4:6-9:
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
Maybe that is a lot to read into a design, especially a baby quilt, but I certainly remember a lot of dark nights as a mother with a newborn. I needed hope and God's light and love in me to help me get through weeks of sleeping in bits and pieces, the learning how to be a mom to this new little life, just as I know lots of moms (and dads) do. So hug those moms with newborns around you! They need lots of them.
I started cutting the fabric into strips. I tried a few blocks of an orange fabric I had to do an improv layout of what I saw out the window, but liked narrow strips better. It gave a pop of color, like those windows, and also reminded me of something from the Bible. Which doesn't usually happen with a quilt, at least not consciously.
2 Corinthians 4:6-9:
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
Maybe that is a lot to read into a design, especially a baby quilt, but I certainly remember a lot of dark nights as a mother with a newborn. I needed hope and God's light and love in me to help me get through weeks of sleeping in bits and pieces, the learning how to be a mom to this new little life, just as I know lots of moms (and dads) do. So hug those moms with newborns around you! They need lots of them.
Just beautiful, Angela! Both the quilt & the story behind it. I enjoyed my first visit to your blog:).
ReplyDeleteSharon