Quilt.Run.Love.

                          

This fall after finishing a quilt top I asked my kids at the dinner table, who wanted the next one?  Max spoke first and asked if I would make another for him.  I said of course and what would he like it too look like?  His answer startled me with its sweetness, he said, "make it look like the night sky."

I don't know what I thought he would say, Max is my first close study of a little boy, but the night sky was not one of the options that ran through my mind. What did, in the seconds after he said it was along the lines of, "you, little man, are so amazing and beautiful that I alone could not have dreamt you into being."

Max's request of the night sky has something to do with his love for space, and likely for Star Wars.  My adoration of his choice has to do with something entirely different.  I love running at night, always have.  In the dark with only street lamps and the expansive sky filling with stars,  I make my way.  At the end of a busy day these runs are my quiet retreat.  My time in my own head, to think about the little people that I have been given to love, to dream for them, pray for them, be thankful for them. 

I finished Max's quilt top two weeks ago.  It was a long,meticulous haul.  I realized that I needed to make it not only for Max right now but also for Max five or ten years from now, so I doubled the size and kept working.  It will soon be sent off to be quilted, and then I will bind it by hand.  Before long, Max will be sleeping with his stars and his mom will keep running under them.