I recently discovered Cheryl Almgren Taylor’s book while exploring Pinterest. She has designed and created some beautiful Bible themed quilts that I know my readers would enjoy. Cheryl graciously agreed to write a guest post about her book…
I want to thank Janice for inviting me to her blog. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Cheryl Almgren Taylor, a quilter and designer who specializes in fusible-web appliqué. My latest book, Inspirational Appliqué, published by Martingale (That Patchwork Place), is a collection of scripture-inspired quilts, wall hangings, and small projects. As I worked on the book, I felt a connection to the quilters of past generations who also used their quilting skills to express their deeply held religious beliefs. We are told that a common practice in historic quilts was to include a deliberate mistake to express the maker’s religious faith, the belief that nothing is perfect except God. I’ve never had to create a deliberate mistake in a quilt—I’m quite proficient at providing numerous mistakes without any extra effort, but I admire this tradition and its place in our heritage.
Birds of the Air
In Inspirational Appliqué I designed special quilts based on passages of scripture that were significant in my life. One of my quilts was inspired by Matt. 6:26, a scripture that my father kept posted in his work area, which says, “Consider the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” The quilt features four window panes, each with a vignette of birds. It is a reminder that we spend too much time worrying about things God has under control.
Fruit of the Spirit
One of my favorite quilts, which was quite challenging to design, is based on Gal 5: 22-23 and is my “Fruit of the Spirit” Wall Hanging. I deliberately chose red as a key design element because it historically has been used to represent the Holy Spirit, and the fruit included apples, pomegranates, and grapes, which all have spiritual significance. They are arranged in a heart shape to represent God’s love.
My Daily Bread
My “Daily Bread” Wall Hanging was done in a color palette of creams, gold tones, and blues and reminds me of my Swedish grandmother and her strong faith. If that doesn’t make sense to you, you need to understand that the national colors of Sweden are blue and yellow, and Grandma was very proud of her heritage.
Faith, Hope, and Love
Finally, my “Faith, Hope, and Love” Wall Hanging, inspired by 1 Cor. 13:13, features three intertwining hearts with the words “faith”, “hope”, and “love” quilted into their centers. This passage of scripture was read at my wedding and is always a source of comfort and inspiration.
Quilting is a source of great joy in my life and it has been a blessing to be able to express my faith through fabric, thread, and color. I wish you well on your quilting journey and feel free to drop by my website www.atimetosewquilts.com or email me at Cheryl@atimetosewquilts. Blessings to you all.~Cheryl
Thank you, Cheryl for sharing your beautiful quilts with us. Cheryl’s books and quilt kits can be purchased on her web page, A Time to Sew Quilts, or on Amazon.com.
I too have been desiring to make Biblically themed quilts for children. I am 59 and I love to sew. I think the fastest way to get quilts on youngsters beds is to have fabric story panels with accessory border fabrics. I think we might need to lobby the cloth manufacturers to develop a line featuring stories from the Bible. Or maybe we need to beg designers(do you know any?) to make drawings that can be used by quilters to make pieced or appliquéd or embroidered blocks. It seems to me that we need drawings more than anything. Drawings in a multitude of styles so we can start to play with turning them into whatever kind of quilt we want. I haven’t truly searched out all the nooks and crannies of what is actually available right now. Maybe Christian comic book artists would like to help us??!!
Anyway those are my meandering thoughts, time to get back to sewing.
Yours truly, Catherine Voegtlin
Thank you Catherine for your vote of confidence in my ideas. I wish I knew a better way to give them wings. It takes financial resources far beyond what I have available to hire an illustrator. We could try to persuade a fabric company to create Bible quilt fabric, but they may go cutesy to get greater sales in this pop-culture world. I feel we need to approach them with an illustrator in mind who can create our vision.
I have used coloring book pictures to create a quilt, but the pictures were either horizontal or vertical when they need to be square. My quilt ended up being way too big, and is still unfinished. I’m away from home and have it with me to work on during idle time as I try to add the final quilting stitches inside the pictures.
For applique designs, the artist has to have some idea of what can and can’t be done with applique before he/she can create illustrations that can be worked in this way. I found an illustrator who created beautiful illustrations for the First Christmas coloring pages, but I found most of them too overwhelming to applique. I have completed a few of the quilt blocks as you can see on the blog.
I appreciate your interest, and will send you an email so we might pursue this further.
For my previous message. I forgot to check “notify me of follow-up comments by email”.
I don’t know if that will pick up all comments or only those who comment to your second comment. But it’s worth a try. I did comment to your other message and plan to send you an email.
I’m in search for the pattern of Wash Day 1954…Please tell me that I can still get it.
Hi Cheryl, looking for instructions on hanky folding for the Wash Day 1956 quilt. Have many of mom’s hankies. Thank you!
Cheryl, where can I find the pattern “Wash Day 1956″? I love the idea of using vintage handkerchiefs!
Christine