“I love you Lord, and I lift my voice to worship You. Oh, my soul, rejoice. Take joy, my King, in what You hear. May it be a sweet, sweet sound in Your ear.” -Worship song “I Love You Lord”
This hymn has been in my head a lot recently. I never, and still don’t, consider myself a good singer. I was not gifted a beautiful voice for the general public. However, I am called to sing praises to our Lord as every believer is! Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly, as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.” Not to mention, there is a whole book of the Bible right in the middle dedicated to recording the songs of God’s people!
Some songs are sung out of sadness or frustration like Psalm 13 where David cries out “How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?” Even in his lamentation, David declares, “But I have trusted in Your loving devotion; my heart will rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, for He has been good to me.” While other songs are pure joy and thanksgiving; “Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!…Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!” (Psalm 47:1,7)
Space Shenanigans Baby Quilt
As singing is a form of art, expressing a wide range of emotions, quilting is also an expressive art form. From color to content, a quilt can resonate with a wide range of people, be a warm embrace for a cold day, or be the comfort from a lost loved one during our darkest moments. My favorite quilts to make are baby quilts. The themes and colors of baby quilts are the pure expression of childhood joy and wonder. What better representation of a child’s imagination than space?
This baby quilt was made for a friend’s baby boy who was born last November. I am honestly over the moon (haha, pun intended) about how great this quilt came out. The pattern is from Apples and Beavers, her Space Shenanigans with two personalized blocks I created. Most of the quilt blocks were paper pieced with the exception of the aliens and most of the astronauts.
I chose vibrant colors to contrast the black background. The planet fabric was the inspiration that I based all the other fabric choices off of. I was able to pull all of these fabrics out of my stash besides the black background fabric.
The family I made this quilt for had two beautiful dogs who passed away a few years ago. Their first fur babies before their boys came along. When we were first discussing the design for this quilt, they asked if I could make a tribute to their dogs as astronauts. I started by creating a foundation paper piecing (FPP) template of the dogs’ faces. They ended up being very small to fit the design! To add a little bit of fun to the blocks, I also placed one of the astronaut puppies on point to give it more of an appearance of floating in space. Let me know what you think of these astronaut puppies in the comments!
Free motion quilting was also a blast! I started with a variegated green, blue, and purple thread to give the appearance of an asteroid belt. From there, I used black thread to create a basic meandering pattern with random loops, stars, and planets. I used orange thread on the planet with a pebble free motion pattern. To not distract from the cute blocks, I only quilted around each character, star, and space ship with the black thread. To finish the quilt, I used the flange binding technique with the same multi-colored fabric as the planet for the “piping” and a black fabric as the main color.
It brings me immense joy to create and give quilts away. I’m thankful that the recipients of my quilts can’t hear my singing in the stitches, but I know that those songs of praise are little prayers sewn in. I encourage you today, no matter what circumstances you find yourself in, to sing praises to our One True King and create something beautiful! Happy Quilting!
Bloopers: No quilt is made without mistakes and that is okay!!
Comment if you know the title reference!