Goddess Quilt Journey

Last night I saw (experienced?) a new goddess quilt. I’ve never really described how this happens, but it’s pretty interesting so I figure I’d share it today.

It sounds really hokey, but here’s how this works: I’ll be thinking about something, quilting, or designing a new design, and suddenly I get a vision for a new quilt almost completely formed in my mind.

Have you ever seen a quilt design that you just HAD to make? It’s like a punch to the guts! It’s just an overwhelming desire to create exactly that image in fabric and thread.

I saw my first goddess when I was around 14. I did beadwork instead of quilting and designed this little figure to be stitched in beads.

Until, of course, I decided that stitching beads on fabric wasn’t beadwork, it was cheating (I was a little limited by my own mind back then!)

So instead I stitched this little goddess in cross stitch, which doesn’t really do her justice. The name of this goddess is Mother Earth Weeping.

I don’t really remember what was going on in my life to make me design this particular figure, but I do remember that I’d been reading a book “The Darkangel Trilogy” by Meridith Ann Pierce that had gotten me thinking a lot about our world and the polluting effects of a modern society.

I’ve actually redesigned her for a quilt, but went a bit crazy with the scale and she ended up being about 9 feet long! I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any walls that tall in my house, so she will have to be redesigned to a smaller scale in order to become a quilt.

Why Goddess Quilts?

Now, I’m sure you’re wondering why I call these female figures “goddesses”.

In truth, there’s no better way to describe them. These figures are most definitely women, powerful, and not limited to any one race, religion, or cultural theme.

I fought for a long time for a good word to describe my women until I finally settled on goddess as the most appropriate term.

The next goddess I saw was years and years later. I was 23 and around 8 months pregnant with my son. For a long time my husband just called her “Pregnant Chick Quilt”, but her actual name is “Life and Fire“.

I was going through a pretty nasty bought of insomnia and feeling pretty sorry for myself and she just popped into my head – the embodiment of power and life flaming into my mind.

I’m not going to go into all the reasons why I needed to see this figure right now, but suffice it to say seeing this image helped me tremendously through the next couple months of my life.

Working on the quilt and focusing on something other than my insomnia was a wonderful distraction as well.

The Inspiration Continued

Seeing how easy it was to translate an image in my mind into a physical quilt, I did some brainstorming and immediately saw another goddess.

This one was also in the process of creation, but more balanced with it. I ended up creating a quilt with this figure for one of my best friends and yoga instructor.

Looking back, I see my early 20’s as being all about the search for balance and yoga allowed me to find my feet so to speak. Even now I still practice yoga once a week and see many goddess figures in the different poses we stand in.

The Biggest Goddess Quilt Yet

The next goddess is the biggest one I’ve created so far, the most powerful, and also the most life changing.

Release Your Light was originally named Light in Me and she didn’t just appear in my head one day, she whacked me upside the head and then consumed my mind with a desire to create her!

This goddess came to me while I was in the middle of the most boring part of The Duchess – quilting the borders. I REALLY hated my life through those borders and was wishing for any distraction.

Feeling sorry for myself I was lying in bed wishing I could be more creative, like it was some limited resource!

The image that appeared in my mind was overwhelming. It wasn’t just an image this time either, a big feeling came with it. This time I saw the goddess and knew that the amount of creativity within my body, all bodies, is overpowering, limitless, and eternal.

At first I called the quilt Light in Me because it had appeared that way originally as the light (creativity) within me that I must release to the world and share.

After getting halfway through making the actual quilt, I changed the name to Release Your Light, so that it would be more than just about me, but speak to everyone.

The fact is, creativity really is limitless and we are ALL creative beings. No matter if you’ve never drawn a straight line in your life, no matter if you’ve never quilted a single stitch!

This was the first time that I really saw how powerful these goddesses could be. While working on her I learned loads and was inspired to start this blog, almost like creating the quilt also helped me to achieve my goal of sharing creativity with the world.

The Goddess Journey Continues

Before I’d even finished this quilt, I saw 3 more goddesses. I think I have my work cut out for me!

So far I have 2 roughly sketched out on graph paper, but some design issues are stalling the project. Sometimes it just takes putting a design on the wall and staring at if for a few months.

The next goddess I will probably make is a small piece called “My Cup Runneth Over”

This is a very simple figure holding a cup of flowing water. I’m having trouble getting just the right look to the cup and flowing water for the design to work.

The feeling or meaning of this quilt is a reminder to appreciate what I have. Sometimes it’s easy to get blindsided by all the “stuff” of life and lose track of what is really important.

Sometimes I need a little reminder to stop, go play with my son, go on a date with my husband, and realize that these are the things that make life sweet and fulfilling.

Wow, that’s optimistic!

After this small quilt, which should only take 2-3 weeks to create, I’ll start my next big show quilt “Emergence”

This goddess came to me about a year ago and she’s clamoring to be made! This quilt has also been hard to design. It’s a goddess quilt splitting a traditional wholecloth quilt literally in half.

This quilt signifies for me the love of traditional quilting, but the need to evolve beyond and embrace where this art form can go.

I still hear people say “If it isn’t made by hand, it isn’t a real quilt.” This seems a little limiting, don’t you think?

In truth, I LOVE traditional quilts and consider myself a traditional quilter. Hard to believe, right?

But the fact is, trapunto and densely quilted motifs ARE very traditional for areas of France where wholecloth quilting was once a huge industry. If you’re interested in learning about this definitely check out the book “Quilts of Provence” by Kathryn Berenson and you’ll learn all you need to know!

Again, the issue with designing Emergence has been balance. How do you mix a bright, in-your-face goddess with a traditional off white wholecloth?

After playing with many wholecloth ideas I suddenly realized that the wholecloth design I needed to be using was The Duchess. This is my most traditional design, therefore the one most meaningful for me.

I am planning on making some changes to the design to make the borders quilt up faster and with much less fuss.

Yet another goddess sketch…

Finally, the goddess I saw last night is very much a product of what books I’ve been reading lately.

It seems like every book I’ve listened to lately has been about a woman fed up with life, leaving her family, traveling far and wide, and then fixing all her problems.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with this type of book, in fact I’ve thoroughly enjoyed listening to “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert, but it concerns me that every book I turn on has the same chuck-your-husband theme to it.

Personally I believe that I can change and become a totally different, healthier person, and still remain happily married and faithful to my husband. I know this because I’ve done it once before after my son was born.

In the 6 months after James was born I went through one of the hardest times of my life, but emerged a totally different, motivated person. Seriously, if you had met me back when I was 21, you wouldn’t recognize me!

But listening to all these books has made me think about those things that I’ve given up to be a wife and mother. Some things are small, like not being able to sleep late on the weekends.

But some things are big. I recently decided to turn down several offers for lectures and workshops in far away places.

When my friend scolded me for turning down an offer to go to Florida and California, I had to explain that there’s no possible way I can travel that far.

It’s not just that I don’t want to leave my family, I also don’t want to stop quilting! I don’t want to make commitments before I know if I’m truly capable of fulfilling them.

Loving My Life as It Is

So this goddess came to me while I was thinking of these things, of what we give up, but also gain from love.

What I love about this goddess already is how very plant like she looks. For some reason she reminds flower bud right before it blooms.

Keep in mind this sketch is the starting point of the design. Hopefully it gives you a basic idea of what I’m taking about.

Her name will be “Bound by Love” and I think it will probably be one of the most beautiful goddesses so far. As for size, I really have no idea!

It’d be nice if I could design these girls to be small wall hangings. But as soon as I get started drawing the design gets bigger and bigger until they’re around 80 inches square.

I guess that’s just my natural pallet size. Maybe in a past life I was a muralist!

So that’s the journey of my goddesses so far. They’re definitely a vibrant, interesting bunch!

Let’s go quilt!

Leah Day