So much of last year was a blur. Because Jim and I were gone a lot, and because of the quilts I chose to make, I made fewer than I usually do. Three of them were particularly time-consuming and spread out over a long time.
One took especially long because it started last year as a UFO. By early July I had the top done. And some time in late August the top was quilted. But I think it was December before I finally got the binding on.
Its name is “Union.” Many quilts seem to name themselves, and occasionally I’ve asked you for help with names. This one took a lot of thought. The overriding factor in its name has to do with the six-pointed star, or hexagram that centers it.
Image from wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexagram
The caption of the image in the wikipedia entry: “A regular hexagram, {6}[2{3}]{6}, can be seen as a compound composed of an upwards (blue here) and downwards (pink) facing equilateral triangle, with their intersection as a regular hexagon (in green).”
In other words, the hexagram is the union of two equilateral triangles.
The symbol has been used for centuries around the world and within many religions. Many of us are familiar with the Star of David in Judaism, but it also is an important symbol in Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. In Christianity, it is called the star of creation. Islamic artifacts and mosques feature it, as well.
Besides the religious connections, there are many others. If you watched the movie based on Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, you saw the interlocking triangles used to indicate “the divine union of male and female energy, where the male is represented by the upper triangle and the female by the lower one.”
Union. To me, the six-pointed star, which began this quilt and literally centers it, represents union or connection. We are all connected.
Union. Finished December 2017. Photo by Jim Ruebush.
The photo shows it is a bit ripply. This is due to the wool batting. I used remnants of wool from other projects. Some of it was thick and resilient, and some of it was very thin. Because of the irregularity of density and loft, I just kept stuffing more wool in as I went, trying to get a fairly consistent thickness through the whole quilt. Besides the rippliness, this has to be the heaviest quilt I’ve ever made.
Here are a few close-up pix to show the quilting and the loft provided by the wool.
This quilt was a puzzle from the beginning, which is why it started 2017 as a UFO. After a long journey, it is finished. It’s not a perfect quilt. When I look at it, I know there are things I would do differently if I were doing it again. Nevertheless, I’m pleased with how it turned out.
Catbird Quilt Studio 