A Quilt for Baby

I sat awake in a house where everyone else was asleep.  It was nearly midnight and I was surrounded by silence.  It's a rarity around here.  I've found myself so drawn to it lately.    As I sat alone, I hand stitched our baby's quilt.

I dreamed and wondered and processed all that was to come.  I thought of all of the women I joined as I did this.   The women who have held fabrics in their hands, the thread and needle binding them together, as they dreamed about their babies.  Wondering what they would look like... what they would be like.  Whether the baby was a he or she.  The women who offered prayers for their growing babies, prayers that all would be well.

How many woman have processed their own fears as the needle made its way through their fabric?  Those normal concerns that arise about labor and birth.  Or wondering how their family will adjust as this new little one is welcomed into it.  Then of course there is the joyful anticipation of what is to come.

I looked out at the dark sky and the bright moon.  The same moon my grandmothers and great-grandmothers gazed upon as they carried their own babies.  I felt a solidarity with other mothers, past and present.  And I found myself thankful yet again for the gift of sewing.

{For this quilt I used Storyboek Field Stroll Cheater patchwork.  I hand quilted it in a stair-step pattern using different colors of embroidery floss.}