Seek and Ye Shall Find-Finished

 Our art quilters group 4 Common Corners has an upcoming exhibition call called Milagros.  Milagros means miracle in Spanish, and Milagros are also religious folk charms usually used for healing purposes, like small votives.  Often they're tiny silver charms like hearts or arms or other body parts.

I started thinking about miracles and tiny things and it made me think of model organisms.  Model organisms are organisms we use in the lab to study various aspects of human biology and human health.  So much of our understanding human physiology that has led to significant advancements in treatments disease cures has come from studies done using model organisms.  

It was tied in my brain to this central idea that God has given us all brains and it is our duty to use them (as well as the rest of our talents ) to serve him.  I'm committed to the idea that scientific exploration and research can bring us closer to God, by helping us serve others and learn more about his world.

So for this quilt I decided that model organisms were my miracle, teeny tiny things that can teach us so much about ourselves.  I made the design in Adobe Illustrator as always, and cut out all the initial shapes while I was at our 4 Common Corners retreat.

The central mandala features three model organisms arragned like an old school model of an atom, with mice, zebrafish, and chlamydomonas. Zebrafish are a widely used model organism for studying development- they develop outside the mother and the embryo is clear so you can watch them develop in real time.  Chlamydomonas is a single celled algae and its two flagella are very much like the primary and motile cilia that are on many of our cells and critical for sensory signaling.

In preparation for this quilt I wrote a collect for scientists.  Collects are a form of highly organized prayer and we use them in our Episcopal worship every week.  There are hundreds of them, for the seasons of the year, for special occasions, for holy days.  Anyway, the text on the quilt is a line from my collect for scientists.  The little orange starfish shaped things are actually bundles of C. elegans, a type of tiny worm, and another model organism we use in the lab to study brain function, aging biology, and cellular development.

The original design was just what you see above, but it just didn't feel finished to me so I added another round of border.  I always keep all the little bits that are leftover after I do my digital cutting and I used a bunch of them here.  The pink doodads are tetrahymena, single-celled eukaryotes.  Studies using them have led to critical advancements in our understanding of fundamental principles of cell biology, including ciliary assembly and function, the existence and role of telomeres (one of the cellular features that contributes to aging), and the ability of RNA to act as enzymes.  The actual applique pieces in the tetrahymena are the leftover innards from making the rose rocks on the border of this quilt.  The gold hilly border is the leftovers from cutting out the interlaced borders in the Revelation quilt I just shared last week.  I love being able to use up the precision cut pieces in new ways.  Nestled in the valleys of the gold borders you'll also see budding yeast, another model organism that has provide significant insight in the biology of the cell cycle and eukaryotic genetics.  

Seek and Ye Shall Find, 42"x42" x. 2026, Shannon Conley

I had a lot of fun quilting this, unfortunately some of my washable marker didn't wash out quite as easily as I'd hoped and the edges of some of my fused applique pieces got a little rough so I had to go back in at the end and couch down some yarn and gold edging.  

Here's the artist statement:

As a scientist, I find purpose in using my intellect to explore, explain, and learn about God's wonderful creation. This piece features model organisms, including tetrahymena, chlamydomonas, C. elegans, budding yeast, zebrafish, and mice. All of these organisms are used to help us learn more about human biology and human health as we pursue research designed to find new treatments to improve human health. The text is from a collect I wrote for scientists.

 

Heavenly Father, origin of all life and author of the universe, we are grateful for your gifts of intellect and curiosity. We ask that you guide and direct all scientists, that we may use our brains and hands for your glory in the service of humanity and all life. Through Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with you across all time and all space. Amen.

Revelation Quilt-Finished

 Earlier in the week I shared in process posts for this quilt, and I'm back today to share the final thing.  This one took me quite a long time, I started it last December, and just finished this week for a total of about ten months.  In a rare case for me, I also worked on a couple of other quilts during the same time; I usually like to work on just one major project at a time, but this quilt really did not travel well so I wasn't able to work on it on some of my sewing trips.  In any case, I'm very pleased with how it turned out and so glad to be finished.  

Revelation, c. 2026, Shannon Conley, 51x73

This quilt is for section of our service when we have communion;  Eucharist is one of the main sacraments of our church.  The top banner says "The Gifts of God for the People of God" and are the words said to invite all God's people to come forward for communion.  The words in the yellow border are the words said when taking communion, "The body of Christ, the bread of heaven." and "The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation."

The Eucharistic symbolism continues in the borders.  I included the alpha and the omega along with four trinity knots to remindness of the wholeness of God in creation and in the Eucharist.  And the central image on the bottom is the consecrated communion host featuring the Christogram "IHS".

To complete the communion symbolism, the left and right border feature tesselating communion chalices.  The tesselating shapes make me very happy from a design perspective.

The central imagery and text are from the book of Revelation 22:1-2.  "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.  On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations."

I love that text and the imagery.  Fruit trees have always been part of what I think of as "home" both growing up where we had apple and cherry and peach trees, and here now where my beloved crabapple tree.  I also love tree of life imagery, and this seemed to be a wonderful time to incorporate it.  I thought the text was especially suitable for a communion quilt as well.  "The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations" reminds us that we are called to go out into our communities and our world, healing and loving and serving others.  I'm reminded of another text from our communion prayer; "Deliver me from the presumption of coming to this table for solace only and not for strength, for pardon only, and not for renewal."  Communion as a sacrament, is for comfort and forgiveness but also for strength to carry forward out mission in the world as we strive to follow God's will for us.

Since I'm a mountain girl not a city girl, the origin of the waters of life is the mountains.  My home mountains in New Mexico.  Interestingly, this is the third time these mountains have shown up in my liturgical quilts;  I think of them as the source, and the place where God's creation resonates most with me personally.

And you won't be surprised to note that the trees of life with their twelve different fruits are all trees of either my family home in New Mexico or my home here and now.

On the left side of the river (from left to right) are a juniper, red delicious apple, crabapple, pistachio, sweet cherry, and redbud.

And the tree on the right side of the river starts with pie cherries, then aspen (yes I know it doesn't technically have fruit, but it's there anyway), peach, yellow delicious apple, piñon pine, and scrub oak.

Revelation is a book filled with so much beautiful (and scary) imagery and symbolism, I love filling in those symbols with things that resonate with me.

Revelation, c. 2026, Shannon Conley, 51x73.

This is the penultimate quilt in the original liturgical series,  I hope to finish the final one by Palm Sunday 2027.

Progress on the Revelation Quilt

 Earlier in the week I showed the first part of my progress on the Revelation quilt mostly focusing on the text.  Today I'm back to share more of the in-progress pictures.

After assembling all the text, my next step was to start working on the trees.  I loved the imagery of the tree of life from Revelation 22:1-2, talking about the tree of life with twelve fruits one for each month, and the tree of life is for the healing of the nations.  I've always loved tree of life imagery, and I enjoyed picking out all different types of fruits that grow on trees where I grew up or where I am now.  The trees are pretty big, and I built them on big pieces of parchment, starting from the trunk up.  I tried to cut out different shaped fruits and leaves for the different varieties of trees.  It worked fairly well, but all the apple and peach leaves wound up pretty much the same. The trees arch over a central river, so there's one tree/trunk on each side.

The Revelation text talks about the "the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city" but I'm not a city person, I'm a mountain person, so I decided that my river of the water of life should be flowing from the mountain.  I made the background for the trees featuring my home mountains (Sierra Blanca in New Mexico) with a river flowing out from it.  The blue background was originally a silk sari a grad school boyfriend brought back from India, and a long time ago I used it to make a dress.  But the dress never fit quite right so it got relegated to the studio.  I cut up some of the skirt to make the background, that's why it's kind of a weird shape on top.  The mountains and foreground are scraps of upholstery fabric, so up close they have a ton of texture.  The foreground is pretty boring, but I knew the trees would fill up most of the space so I didn't want to make it too busy.

After getting the central imagery (trees/river/mountains) assembled, it was time to work on the borders.  The top border has a large banner saying "The Gifts of God, for the People of God" and above it some gold interlacing. I had a lovely gold brocade I used for that and it came out lovely.  I really like the interlocking designs.

The bottom border had more filigree, and a gleaming starry communion host in the middle since this is a communion kit.  I know it looks sort of like a sun, but it's actually a communion wafer.  I added the alpha and omega and the trinity knots to bring to mind the wholeness of God in the sacrament of communion.

Unfortunately, you can see on the bottom of this picture that my purple fabric wasn't quite long enough, so I wound up piecing in a little scrap when I quilted it.  It didn't match perfectly, but good enough. 

Then to complete the communion motif,  I put tesselating communion chalices up the left and right borders.  

It's quilte large (for me) and quilting it was challenging but fun.  I love the quilting part and I love picking out all the symbols for these liturgical pieces.  Come back later in the week to see the final quilt!

Revelation-New Liturgical Quilt

I recently finished (just in time for an exhibition of my liturgical quilts), one of the final pieces for the original series.  I have one more left to fully complete the original series, but I really wanted to get this one done, at least, before the exhibition.  It's for the Holy Eucharist (Communion) and I actually started it at my mom's last Christmas (December 2025).  While I was at her house, I cut all the letters for the border and the focus biblical text.

The yellow border says "The body of Christ, the bread of heaven. Amen The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation"

While I was at her house, I also cut out all the letters for the bible verse, Revelation 22:1-2.  I didn't have the background fabric there, so I just carefully put all the letters in a big flat box and took them home with me.

Once I got home, I dyed some of the gorgeous silk charmeuse from Georgia (thanks Georgia!).

I wasn't sure exactly what color I wanted to use for the background so I dyed a couple.  One is a dark blue-purple, and the other is a more pink black cherry purple.   In the end I decided on the one on the right, and I'll use the one on the left for a future piece.  I backed it with fusible interfacing just to stabilize the (very) shifty silk.

Here it is after I put on the yellow text border.  The next step was the Revelation text and illuminated initials.

I got this far fairly efficiently, that picture just above was from the beginning of February, and then it took me the next eight months to finish it.  Come back later this week for more in-progress pictures. 

New Confession-Finished

 Earlier this week I shared my new Confession quilt, unfortunately its edges were so ruffly I knew I couldn't leave them like that.  

A lot of the problem was the couched yarn edges which had pretty permanently stretched out the edges.  I cut off all the edges and decided I didn't want to struggle with getting the curves even or taking the chance of things stretching out again.  So I decided to make it octagonal and cut the edges down nice and straight.  I stitched grosgrain ribbon along the edges on the back side to prevent the edges from stretching.  I think that really helped,  it was a suggestion from my friend Diana Fox who uses twill tapeon the back of all her edges.  I think it's beneficial, especially for all these things I make with weird fabric.  I wound up putting a traditional binding on this one after stabilizing the edges and I think it came out ok.

Confession 2, c. 2026, Shannon Conley, 52x36

It hangs much nicer now and I'm so glad it's out of time out!

New Quilt-Confession-2

 

Back in 2017 I made this piece below as part of my liturgical series. It features our prayer of confession.  I sold it to the Episcopal Cathedral in Sacramento, California. It was an exciting sale but I've regretted selling it ever since, mostly because I want to have the whole series together.  Almost as soon as I sold it, I knew I'd need to make another one.

I didn't get around to it until last year, and of course I couldn't remember exactly how I'd done it.  I remember I'd written out the confession on plastic and used cyanotype to print it on fabric, so I started that way again.  I printed out the words full-size in the cross shape and put it under a piece of glass.  I wanted it to be in my handwriting, so I used the paper words as a guide for where to place the words.

Unfortunately, after trying to do the cyanotyping, I could barely see the words.  Finally I decided to go back to my blog posts from way back then and realized that I'd had this same trouble before; the glass was thick enough that the sunlight could sort of come it an angle under the writing on the top of the glass.

For the second time, I wrote the words on a piece of thin tablecloth vinyl and put that under the glass and tried the printing again.

That time it worked much better, and the edges of the vinyl actually printed as well which went along with the theme.

I didn't have any more of the turquoise fabric, but I had a lovely large piece of this pruple and brown wool.  It was a wonderful thick wool with a fairly open weave.  It was actually some sort of poncho, no idea where it came from, but it had a lovely soft drape and a nice curved edge so I decided to use it for the background.  I finished the edge of the floating prayer for the center and then floated it inside the wool piece.  I quilted some pieces of the baptismal vows in the background, and then finished the edges with couched yarn.  The edge was way too thick to turn for a facing. 

Unfortunately, the wool was really soft and stretchy and the curved edges got really stretched out and ruffly.  I liked the yarn, but there was no amount of pressing or anything I could do to get it to lay flat.  I was so hacked I just hung it up on the wall in time out and ignored it for a year.  Now that I'm about to exhibit all the quilts though, I decided it was time to fix it for good.  Come back on Wednesday to see how I rescued it.