Rainbow Cross Quilt
In 2019, I was commissioned to make a quilt to hang at Castle Church Brewing Community in Orlando, FL.
Our family moved to Florida from July 2018 - July 2019 to help start up this brewery and church in one. The building housed both the brewery and a tap room, which included a beer garden that served as the church home. The whole set-up was pretty industrial, which worked just fine for a brewery, but the church needed a little color and love - hence my quilt commission!
I knew I wanted the quilt to feature a cross since it's such a significant symbol for the Christian church. I also wanted to incorporate a rainbow of colors because Castle Church is all about the idea of all being welcome.
I stuck with solid fabrics so it didn't get too busy, and started making slabs of color, with a vague idea of how I'd pull everything together. I aimed for clean, bright colors and used whatever solids I had on hand. I supplemented with one extra red, orange, yellow, green and blue, and several purples - not much of that in my stash, I guess!
Here are my slabs in progress.
Next came layout. I played around with several options and also asked people to weigh in on Instagram.
You know how sometimes, something just clicks? I had my "ah ha" moment with the last layout. The others were all okay, but as soon as I started this, I KNEW I'd nailed it.
Watch my assembly video here:
Diane Oakes quilted it. Can we all just stop and admire that gorgeous texture she created?
I chose to do a facing instead of a visible binding--my first ever--but I didn't want the edge color of binding to distract from the quilt.
My husband Ed got to do the installation!
There is is on the scissors lift in the brewery, hanging the quilt.
I was so honored to create this quilt for Castle Church, and I love that I got to leave a little piece of me behind when we returned to Michigan.