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Christian Quilts for Every Season, Part 4: Thanksgiving

3/29/2017

There's no rule that says ordinary has to be boring.

In the church calendar, all those Sundays that aren't part of a special season, like Easter or Christmas, are called "Ordinary Time." You'd think the church fathers could have come up with something a little less, well, ordinary, but that's what it's called. My green pulpit banners, like the one pictured above, are my attempt to add a little pizzazz to the unremarkable parts of the calendar.

This one, actually, was made especially for Thanksgiving, but the Eucharistic symbols of bread (the wheat), wine (the grape vines) and the chalice are appropriate for any time of year.

The background block for this hanging is called "Peace and Plenty," which struck me as particularly fitting for Thanksgiving.

Along with the other designs in this series, the pattern for this banner will be available in my Craftsy shop.

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Christian Quilts for Every Season, Part 3: Pentecost

3/20/2017

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Hands down, this is my favorite.

Of all the hangings I've made for my church (5 so far, with another in progress), the Pentecost banner is my clear favorite.

The Pentecost story has captured my imagination since I was quite young, and why not? It has all the elements of a blockbuster movie: sound effects (the sound of a rushing wind so loud it drew a crowd); visual effects (tongues of fire!); and transformative human drama.

If that wasn't enough inspiration, I kept thinking of these lines from the dazzling poem, "God's Grandeur," by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

Seriously, "shining from shook foil"? Just close your eyes and picture that.

Then the poem ends with this:

  Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
  Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
  World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

I wanted to pull all those elements into my design. The flaming brilliance. The rushing wind -- if not the sound of it at least the sense of powerful movement. The image of the Holy Spirit descending as a dove.

For the flaming effect, it helped that the traditional liturgical color for Pentecost is red. And what would be more natural than a Bargello piecing pattern, since this quilt- piecing technique is adapted from "flame stitch" needlepoint? I chose 11 tonal prints in a range of red hues, from almost-orange to almost-violet.

The color variations in the Bargello pattern create a sort of undulating movement, but I wanted something more directional and forceful, to bring in the drama of that rushing wind. I used golden rays, fanning out from the top center of the banner. Borne on these rays of light, the dove of the Holy Spirit plunges downward. The rays, 7 in number, also represent the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

For all the appliqué elements of this piece, I used the needle-turn technique, and I'm honestly not so thrilled with the results. If I had it to do over, I'd use fused appliqué with machine-overcast edges. Or maybe not. My needle-turn skills have improved enormously since I made this.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini - Dove of the Holy Spirit (ca. 1660, stained glass, Throne of St. Peter, St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican)

Sometime after my Pentecost banner was finished, I discovered the gorgeous stained glass in the photo at left. It was designed around 1600 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, a genius of Italian Baroque art and architecture.

I'm glad I didn't find it sooner, or I might have tried to duplicate it. As it is, I think my hanging incorporates two or three of the same design elements.

Like the Advent and Easter banners, the pattern for this one will be available for instant download in my Craftsy shop.

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Christian Quilts for Every Season, Part 2: Easter

3/15/2017

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These past 2 weeks, I've been enjoying a bit of imaginary time travel, as I analyze my pulpit hangings to write up the patterns. Re-visiting projects that were completed several years ago has transported me to an earlier moment in my quilting journey.

At the time I made these little banners, I was very much making it up as I went along. I love that free-wheeling, totally spontaneous working method. It often results in beautiful designs, surpassing anything my analytical left-brain would have created. On the other hand, that sew-first-think-later approach can lead to construction processes that are, shall we say, less than optimally efficient.

Take my Easter banner. (No, actually, you may not take mine. Go make your own!) This was my first venture into liturgical designs, made as a memorial to a dear friend and all-round amazing lady, Jean Curtis. It needed to be stunningly beautiful, to do Jean justice. Taking shortcuts of any kind was not part of the plan.

Two Themes

There are two themes in this design: Resurrection, of course, since it's Easter, and also the Trinity. Come to think of it, this same design, without the floral appliqué, would be perfect for Trinity Sunday, white being the traditional color for both Easter and Trinity Sunday.

The theme of Resurrection is expressed by the white lilies, a time-honored symbol of Easter. They bloom before the cross, in an orb of golden light. Using two lighter values of gold in the circle creates the illusion of the cross remaining visible behind the luminous circle. Life triumphs over death.

The Trinity theme is developed throughout the hanging, starting with the three white lilies. Each lily holds three embroidered stamens, and the lilies bloom on a stalk with three sets of three leaves.

The Thousand Pyramids design of the background takes the Trinity theme into the very substance of the banner. Triangular patches, cut from an assortment of white-on-white fabrics, combine to form innumerable expanding triangles. The cross, and even the circle of light, are composed of Thousand Pyramids patchwork.

Here's where I may have gone a bit overboard. Honestly, all that tricky piecing of all those tiny patches in the circle does not show up behind the bold floral elements. Plus, it makes a rather lumpy substrate for the appliqué. In writing up the pattern, I greatly simplified this part.

Other than that, I'm still totally in love with this design. Like the Advent banner, the Easter hanging is finished with a row of prairie points on the bottom edge, and a wrap-around backing with integrated hanging sleeve. This is one of my favorite, genius time-saver techniques for small wall-hanging quilts.

Go Make Your Own!

With an entire month left before Easter, there's still plenty of time to stitch up this banner. You can download the pattern here.

Coming next: the Pentecost banner!

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Christian Quilts for Every Season, Part 1: Advent and Lent

3/8/2017

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Last week, I introduced the suite of liturgical hangings I designed for the Chatham church. This week, we'll start getting into some details about each design.

The first design I'll share was made for the Advent season, but it serves equally well for the season of Lent, which began last week. For both Advent and Lent, the traditional liturgical color is purple. This banner uses textural purple prints in 5 graded values, from nearly-black to nearly-white.

At the center of the piece is a brilliantly white element, which reads as a star (for Advent) or a cross (for Lent). The narrow shapes and sharp points give the impression of slicing open the center of the hanging, admitting a burst of light into the purple darkness.

"...And God separated the light from the darkness." (Genesis 1:4)

The placement of the purple fabrics, progressing from the lightest values at the center to the darkest at the edges, continues the theme of spreading light.

Construction of the hanging is simpler than it looks. There are 24 6-inch blocks of identical design, differing only in color. I named this block design, “Genesis", for the dramatic way it divides the light and dark values.

The same set of 6 templates is used for both the lighter and darker halves of each block, with no left-handed/right-handed variations of the block templates to keep track of. Avoiding mirror symmetry in the blocks keeps the overall design dynamic.

The central star may look complicated, but it's really an easy trick. The "arms" of the star are added by machine on top of each quadrant of assembled blocks. Then the 4 quarters are seamed together. Slick.

The old pulpit hanging in the church had long drapery fringe on the bottom. Not wanting to use fringe, I opted for a row of prairie points to finish the lower edge.

Instead of the standard quilt binding, I used a wrap-around backing technique. That has the advantage of forming an integrated hanging sleeve, and means no binding to sew on.

The pattern, available now in my Craftsy shop, includes full-size templates for the blocks and the star, plus detailed piecing and assembly instructions and a clear color-placement chart.

Next week, I'll share my Easter hanging, which features lavish appliqué over a thousand-pyramids background.

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Making history with quilts

3/1/2017

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In 2017, the tiny town of Chatham, NH, celebrates its 250th anniversary. The town, 300 residents strong, will be celebrating with special events all through the year. In the spirit of that celebration, I'll be sharing my own small contribution to Chatham history over the next few weeks.

Chatham has been my home only since 2005, which makes me definitely "from away." Actually, if I lived here another 50 years, I'd still be "from away." Such is life in rural northern New England. All the same, I feel a deep connection to my adopted community, and particularly to its lovely little church.

The church, built in 1871, houses a massive bell made by the Paul Revere firm in Boston. Weighing nearly 900 pounds, it's one of the largest cast by Revere. The bell traveled by ship from Boston to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. From there, it was hauled overland by 6 yoke of oxen in the dead of winter. That's 12 burly beasts!

Over the past several years, I've made a suite of small quilts to serve as pulpit hangings for the church. Creating these banners has been some of the most absorbing and soul-satisfying work of my quilting journey. As I handled the fabrics and meditated on the meaning of each liturgical season, the designs seemed to reveal themselves.

Each quilt also honors the memory of one of the church's departed elders. I hope that through my little quilts, the memory of these fine individuals will live on in Chatham history.

To celebrate Chatham's anniversary, I'll be sharing these original designs, and making the patterns available in the Thimble Garden Craftsy shop.