The story of Jacob's Ladder is written in the book of Genesis.  Jacob, a grasping sort of character who conned his brother into giving him his inheritance, is fleeing his brother's rage and going to a far-off land to live with his uncle.  One night while he's on the run, Jacob puts his head on a rock for a pillow and tries to sleep.  In a dream, he looks up and sees "a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven.  And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!"  From the top of the ladder, God tells him that He will keep the promises He's already made to Jacob's father, and will fulfill them through Jacob and his sons.  (Not that Jacob deserves this grace, the cad!  It's more about God's character than Jacob's.)  When Jacob wakes up, he's stirred to make a monument to this special place where Heaven touched Earth, and he promises to serve God as long as God keeps His promise (and, oh--lets him return home safely without getting murdered).

Jacob's path back home isn't an easy one, but that's another day's story.  For today, we have the story of Jacob's ladder, a symbol of God's choice to make connections with creation, and to reach down into our reality and effect it. 

Jacob's Ladder is also the name of a string game, a wooden toy, and a quilt block.  Guess which one this post is about? 

During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, several of my friends got married.  Now they are producing little humans!  Time to make people quilts.  However, I have scant patience for stereotypical "baby" quilts... I don't like washed out pastels, toy or cloud motifs, flannel, or appliqués!  (If I were fonder of appliqué work, I might be done my Dandelion quilt by now!)  Instead, I am playing with patchwork, and enjoying the opportunity to play with color schemes I might not otherwise choose, in small sizes!  I like the idea of the baby still using the quilt as they grow, long after the cutesy stuff is consigned to memorabilia.  Today, I share a quilt for a co-worker who is adopting.  The colors work for boy or girl. 

I was originally calling this quilt "Pick-Up Sticks/Acid Trip", but as I work on it, my pick-up sticks inspiration is fading, while the acid trip associations are getting stronger. 

Anyway, I'm calling it the Acid Trip quilt, now.  Here are the posts, so far:
1. String Piecing (Pick-up Sticks/Acid Trip)
2. Pick-up Sticks/Acid Trip coming along

In no particular order, nor any particular relevance to this blog...

Way back in early 2017, about the time I started this blog, I decided to start a simple quilt made of 3" squares, each representing a completed sewing project.  I started by collecting the squares as I sewed other things.  Some of the squares were a single fabric, but others were themselves pieced from the several fabrics used in a single project.  I collected for a while, but never made the quilt because I didn't know how to bring the pieces together attractively. 

A few months back, as I became motivated to quilt, I pulled those squares out and re-evaluated them.  I discarded all the synthetic fabrics, keeping the cotton, silk, rayon, and linen.  I also discarded too-heavy or too-sheer squares, paring my selection down to only things that would work well for piecing.  Then I threw them together in a few days, into a very strange quilt-top.  It was more an exercise in piecing and setting blocks on point than a real design.  I'm fond of it, but not excited enough to finish it, so it sits now in the WIP pile.