Father Phil’s Thank You Quilt

(Presently this is the only picture I have of this quilt. I will ask Father Phil to let me borrow the quilt to get a better picture of it – but this is the general idea)

This quilt – as far as the quilt design, was created using the format of the Earth floating with Mantle piece. There is a good spatial effect in the work which I was working to achieve. I was given to understand that one of Father Phil’s favorite colors was blue. Mine too – I have three shelves of blue fabric, and not so much of others…the gold is like the sun and the blue is both the sky and the sea. Father Phil lived in both California near the Pacific Ocean, and in the upper peninsula of Michigan near the Great Lakes. I tried to find fabric that represented both watery spaces. The outside edge is wavy to copy the waves of the sea. The center “Jamie” crown has a piece of fabric with dolphins on it. When you stand in front of the quilt it looks like you are at the aquarium watching the dolphins swimming. The gold strip that separates the blue and gold sections is cut from a piece that was kind of an ombre fabric, but it was a panel depicting lightning. How apt for someone growing up in the midwest where we have thunder and lightning storms. 

And why to thank? Father Phil is a young man, but it seems his familial genes gave him a heart that needed to have quadruple bypass surgery. We were all aware, and thus I was very surprised when the day before his surgery he was at our door. My husband passed away on May 14 – the day before the father’s surgery. And there he was to support us and to be with us and give last rites. We were all grateful, and I thanked him the best way I knew how – with a quilt.