How to Design Your Own Goddess Quilt

It’s time to design your own goddess quilt! I’m celebrating the launch of my new book, Leah Day’s Goddess Quilts, and diving into goddess quilt design in this episode of the Hello My Quilting Friends Podcast. Watch the episode and see all my crazy sketches that eventually get cleaned up and become beautiful quilts!

Use this player to listen to this podcast or download it to your computer:

Click Here to preorder Leah Day’s Goddess Quilts! This is an artistic memoir that tells the story of my goddess quilts and how making each one has changed my life. I filled this book with beautiful full page photos and inspiring stories about courage, forgiveness, and gratitude.

No, this is not a technique book and it does not include quilt patterns. This is why I’m sharing this podcast today on designing your own goddess quilt! If you’re really wanting to capture your own, unique design, you will want to begin with your own drawing and symbolism that speaks specifically to you.

But if that seems a bit intimidating to start with, click here to check out the Eternal Love Quilt Pattern. This small wall hanging is a great place to start because I’ve done all the work for you and created full sized templates for you to make a small mother and child goddess quilt. I also shared five tutorials last year to guide you through every step of the process.

Click Here to preorder Dream Goddess 3 Month Planner and Creativity Journal – I designed this planner while writing the goddess book and it helped me focus on this single, dream achievement. I’ve filled this planner with beautiful pictures of my goddess quilts and journal prompts to help you identify and overcome everything holding you back.

I Hope This Makes Sense…

I can’t count the number of times I said this during this podcast! This is a bit of a ramble-fest as I begin paging through a big stack of goddess designs I’ve been saving for years.

No, I didn’t carry you through from start to finish on a single goddess quilt design. I tried for two weeks to speed-design two goddess quilts and it simply doesn’t work that way. I can’t pull these designs out of the ether!

Sometimes it flows easy and sometimes it feels like pulling teeth. Both designs I was working on will likely end up being scrapped because I realized during the process that they weren’t coming from a positive place or leading anywhere good.

And this leads perfectly into the first step:

Step 1 – Begin with a Positive Focus

This style of quilt is intentionally emotional and purposeful. The point of a goddess quilt is to embrace change in your life. Who do you want to be? What are you dreaming of? What do you want more of in your life?

Notice that all of these questions are positive? It is far better to focus on what you can change, what you can choose, what you have an ability to control.

Yes, this puts the responsibility on your shoulders as well. If you want your life to transform, you must be the one ready to bend, twist, and stretch in a new direction.

And let me warn you from the beginning – it is far easier lean towards the negative.

What is in my way? Who is holding me back? Why can’t I have it as easy as her? Here’s all the things I DON’T want to deal with.

If you asked someone, what do you want to experience next year? They will likely have to take some time to think that answer through. If you ask someone, what do you NOT want to experience next year? Most people can answer that quickly: I don’t want to get sick. I don’t want to experience loss or pain. I don’t want bad things to happen.

But negativity is bad place to begin a goddess quilt because these quilts tend to take a good bit of time to create. Do you really want to be mucking around in blame, resentment, comparison, or anger for several months or years?

I’m going to emphasize this repeatedly, exactly like I did in the book Leah Day’s Goddess Quilts: focus on the light. Focus on what you actively have the power to change within yourself.

My Not-So-Good Inspiration

I suppose it’s a good thing that I had two not-so-positive designs to share. My first idea came from Eye of Calm, a beautiful pregnant goddess quilt I created this year. The name of the quilt gave me an idea for another name: Storm of Loss. Nope, not positive at all. Way to NOT follow your own advice, Leah!

But as I said in the podcast: you are where you are and you cannot be anywhere else.

I had a miscarriage last month I’ve been working my way through this loss one day at a time. Drawing these two goddess designs was very helpful for honoring and acknowledging how I felt. But no, I don’t think they will make good goddess quilts.

For one thing, both quilts were so focused on loss to the exclusion of all else. Yep, you can stick a sunshine in the corner, but unless it actually fits within the design in a meaningful way, it doesn’t work!

But by drawing these designs, I gave myself permission to think about where I want to go from here. What do I want to focus on – this loss, or the blessing of being pregnant for that short time? What will help me move towards the light?

And I found the answer was gratitude. I want to design a quilt that is aggressively positive, that will help me cut through the frustration and resentment I’ve been feeling. I want to focus on how lucky we are to be at this place in our lives.

And I want to embrace being vulnerable. With the release of this book and the recent podcasts I’ve shared, I feel like I’m walking around everywhere in a skimpy bikini. Very exposed. Very vulnerable. This isn’t easy, but this is how I want to share, so I must embrace this vulnerability. I have a feeling this is leading somewhere good, but it’s not going to be a comfortable ride.

A Few Rules for Goddess Quilts

As you can probably tell, I don’t give you a lot of rigid rules or contradictory requirements. There are a few things that I think are important to keep in mind:

1. If you are a person that easily simplifies things, your goddess quilts may need to be more complicated to push you in a new direction.
2. Vice versa, if you are a person that easily complicates things, your challenge will be to keep your goddess quilt simple.
3. Words on a quilt are a cheap sucker punch. Even if you slice up the words, distort them, paint them, etc, they are still words and they shortcut a viewers interpretation of your quilt. Please avoid using words for this reason.
4. The goal is to make a beautiful quilt with a positive purpose and meaning. Try to avoid being intentionally offensive or shocking. Again, a sucker punch isn’t a lot of fun for those on the receiving end.
   (One caveat to this: everyone seems to be offended by everything these days. A good guide I follow is this: would I be comfortable showing my grandma my quilt? If the answer is no, it’s not appropriate.)
5. Listen and look for the question in your quilt. A good drawing will make you ask a question or focus on your goal whenever you look at it.

Be Open to Any Inspiration

I sometimes begin drawing with a clear idea in mind, sometimes I don’t. Today I made a cup of coffee and began drawing and designed this beautiful goddess quilt:

I’m really excited about this design. I’ve been wanting to design a goddess quilt that represents love, companionship, and the security of marriage for quite some time. This definitely feels more positive than the other designs I’ve drawn recently.

And it’s already making me ask a question: What are you embracing?

I think it’s very easy to turn away from those we love most during times of loss. I think it’s very easy to get mired in resentment, frustration, and blame. I’ve been wading in a lot of that muckety-muck for the past few weeks and I’m done with it.

This quilt symbolizes vulnerability and dependence. Yes, a bit of grief is wrapped in this, but overwhelmingly I see this as a positive image. That question – what are you embracing? – is perfect. Am I embracing this new uncomfortable vulnerability? Can I lean into my husband more? Am I trusting him to support me and giving him reason to trust me?

Those are all powerful questions and they lead easily to the name of this quilt: Open My Heart.

Because how can we embrace those we love, how can we support them, and be our most vulnerable selves unless our heart is wide open?

Yes, You Can Do This, Even if You Can’t Draw

I don’t consider myself very good at drawing. I’ve learned how to work around my lack of ability rather than letting it limit me. In many ways, this has made my goddess quilts more distinctive and symbolic.

I can’t draw hands and feet. I decided a long time ago not to bother and all my goddess’ hands and feet taper to sharp points. This is far easier to construct out of fabric, and far less fiddly to draw too.

When I began making goddess quilts, they rarely had facial features: eyes, nose, mouth. I’ve never put ears on any of them. Then I went through a phase of putting faces on my quilts and in some cases this didn’t work very well. I find myself getting stuck looking at their faces wishing I’d shrunk that big nose or widened her mouth.

Those elements aren’t always helpful and can pull you away from appreciating your quilt. Again, it’s very, very easy to focus on all the ways something isn’t good enough instead of all the ways it’s awesome.

These days I’m back to leaving faces blank. It’s faster to draw and less fiddly to create in fabric. Why bother adding something that isn’t really needed anyway?

So please stop looking at your abilities (or lack of skill) as a deficit. Focus on what you CAN draw and accept and love your best effort. Scrap the rest.

Focus on the Light

I will end this lesson the same way I ended the book Leah Day’s Goddess Quilts with this simple advice: focus on the light.

On this journey of self discovery, personal growth, and change, you can go in two directions. You can turn one way and get mired in all the ways your life sucks, all the ways you’ve been hurt in the past, all the ways you’re inept, unskilled, and imperfect.

… OR…

You can turn the other way and let all that garbage go. You can focus on the light, and who you want to become. Focus on changing yourself, building new skills, expanding your knowledge, and accepting your limitations. You can decide – and this really is a daily choice – to be kind to yourself.

Thank you so much for reading this lengthy ramble on designing goddess quilts! I sincerely appreciate it and I hope you will share pictures of your drawings with me at the Quilt Friends Club. This membership group helps support our podcast and all the tutorials I share each week.

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day

Check out the most recent podcast episodes:

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• #116 – How Much Time Will This Quilt Take?
• #115 – Ten Steps to Finishing Your UFOs
• #114 – Priority is Singular!
• #113 – Celebrating Ten Years in Business!
• #112 – Back from July Vacation
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