Quilting the Psalms

In 2007 I ordered a pattern called Quilting the Psalms from Carol Honderich at http://www.patternsoffaith.com/ . The collection includes 32 traditional pieced blocks and 32 applique blocks which represent key verses in the Psalms.  I completed all of the blocks in 2008.  I wasn't sure how I wanted to arrange them, but felt that I needed a large focus block to act as the centerpiece for my quilt.  The inspiration for that came when we were visiting our son in Northern Illinois. We attended the local Lutheran church, and I saw a banner at the front of the sanctuary that depicted the Good Shepherd.  The minute I saw that banner, I knew I had the perfect focus for my quilt.  As soon as church was over, I drew a quick sketch of the part of the banner that I wanted to use. From that sketch, I created "The Lord is my Shepherd" applique block.

 The quilt top was completely assembled in 2008.  I was relatively new to quilting at that time, and I was very much afraid that I would ruin my quilt top with my novice quilting skills.  Therefore, I folded the quilt top and put it on a shelf in the closet. 
On New Year's Day this year, 2014, I set my goals for the year.  One of them was to finish one of the quilt tops that languished in a closet.  In June I took out all of my unfinished tops. (There are quite a few of them.) I decided that it was time to machine quilt my Psalms quilt.  I took my time - doing only a few blocks each day.  If you look carefully at the picture below, you can see the ChiRho, Trinity symbol, and dove quilted in the large purple areas. I quilted each of the small blocks in a way to emphasize the pattern of the individual block.

All in all, I am very pleased with the finished quilt.  Sure, there are lots of mistakes, but hopefully, I'm the only one who will notice them.