BQF: Oceans of Love

Time again for Blogger's Quilt Festival, which I like to participate in, when I can. This year, I have my Oceans of Love quilt --- I originally submitted this to the Sacred Threads exhibit, but it was not chosen, so I'm showing it off here instead.

I have to say, I am so insanely proud of this quilt. If you want to learn more about it, please follow the "Oceans of Love" tag at the bottom of this post (or click that link in the prior statement) and read up on how this quilt came to be, what all it means, and the ups and downs of the process of making this quilt.

This is a traditional Storm at Sea design, but all original coloring designed by me. I used EQ7 to work out the design and as my pattern for templates (for the diamond blocks) and coloring placement guide as I pieced the blocks, since the coloring is rather complex.

Every color placement is symbolic, which you can read about in detail in prior posts, but the basic meaning of the quilt is this:

The inspiration behind this quilt started with three songs. First, a song about the love of Christ, His gift to us; second, a song about compassion for those suffering, those we might otherwise ignore; lastly, a song reminding us that in the end, after all the tears have been cried, there is love. 

One day it hit me – together, these songs sum up Christianity. To love God with our whole heart, to love our neighbor as our self, to bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. 

This quilt is my attempt to represent that in fabric. 

I did all of the quilting myself, on my domestic machine; it's not a large quilt -- it is 39.5" on each side, and was designed to fit in this little nook at the top of my stairs, thus the size.

The quilting is kept simple on purpose because I wanted the overall design itself to speak the loudest.

I echo quilted inside each separate element, as it were; inside the white of the cross, with pearly white thread; inside the central "drums" to echo and enhance that they are meant to be tribal style drums, along the center & radiating out from the flesh toned rays, and then inside the waves in the outer, primary-colored section to enhance the waves or curves formed by the Storm at Sea pattern.

I tailored the thread choices to the fabric, using white for the white, a Sulky gold thread for the flesh toned areas and for the drums in the center, and a variegated King Tut thread for the red/yellow/blue area; I used matching threads on the back as well, using solid white, gold or royal blue to coordinate with the top thread being used.

Binding was done in the traditional double-fold, attached to the back by machine then folded over & hand sewn to the front, using mitered corners.

I love seeing this at the top of my stairs every day; it was a tremendous challenge in precision quilting for me, and I'm very proud of the effort and the outcome put in.

I'm linking this up to the Small Quilts Category of the Spring 2015 Blogger's Quilt Festival; I hope you'll vote for my quilt or at least take a peek at the other entrants and vote for your favorite, whatever that might be!