The fortieth anniversary of the Houston Quilt Festival was held in November 2014 and I made a point to go – in fact it felt more like a pilgrimage than anything else.  I signed up to volunteer at the NASA booth, which was expected to be busy, because astronaut Karen Nyberg was going to be speaking at the show that afternoon.  I asked my friend and mentor Gail to go with me; she immediately agreed and even reserved a government vehicle for us, which I really appreciated.  In this way, I had someone to keep me company in the car ride to the convention center and back, and it was definitely a day that I wanted to be with friends.  My mom had passed away only 7 weeks earlier, and I was missing her terribly.  Fortunately, I was very much surrounded by friends at the quilt show.  I ran into my friends Robert and Susan there, and also my friend Kathleen and her mom came by the booth.

The reason I was so motivated to go to the quilt show was because Karen Nyberg made a star quilt block while she was living on-orbit on the International Space Station (ISS) during Expedition 36/37 for six months in 2013.  She hand-stitched the square and made a video where she talked about the challenges and intricacies of quilting in zero gravity.  Here is a picture I took of the screen during Karen’s presentation, that shows her star block floating in front of the impressive Cupola windows on the space station.  So when she returned to Earth from ISS, Karen announced a quilt block challenge.  I heard about it and sent the information, including specific details such as required dimensions, to my mom and some of her quilting friends. They were excited about the project and followed through by making squares and submitting them to the process.

Quilters take block challenges seriously and, of course, the star pattern is a classic.  I’m not a quilter, but making those triangles line up exactly perfect looks like it takes a lot of effort and practice.  Karen said that they had been expecting to receive maybe around 200 quilt blocks, but instead they were flooded with over 2000 submissions.  So, her idea for an “astronomical quilt” actually turned into 28 quilts, with many more squares that were put into folders that you could flip through.  My mom’s friends Beth, Cheryl, Pat, and Judy drove over from San Antonio for the event, and just being surrounded again by my mom’s friends brought me a great deal of comfort.  We weren’t able to find Beth’s block, but we did find my mom’s square in one of the books.  Here is a photo of me with mom’s quilt square.

It’s hard to find the words to describe how spectacular I found the astronomical quilts to be – really absolutely beautiful!  In fact, the whole day at the quilt festival was a gift; to see the multitude of stars in every color and pattern possible, stitched into astronomical quilts was truly awesome.  Nothing was omitted or rushed.  The peaceful calm I felt talking to my mom’s friends, who were also grieving for her, really made me feel surrounded by love!

And working the NASA booth was great too.  Over the years, I have had lots of experience staffing booths to describe to the public what I do at NASA, but I had not actually done that for a number of years.  However, this time seemed to me like sort of the epitome of all of my booth-staffing experiences.  I knew something interesting to explain to folks for every piece of hardware that was there and it created a feeling of confidence that I don’t always have at work, when it seems like I am always racing the clock to get everything required done.  And it was wonderful to meet Karen Nyberg.  She had some time in her schedule and graciously walked around the displays with me for awhile.  NASA photographer, Lauren Harnett, even took our picture with my mom’s square, which was nice – really heart warming actually.

At 3pm, we listened to Karen’s talk about quilting on ISS and it was extremely interesting, with just the right ratio of description to photos.  After the presentation, everyone started getting ready to leave.  I asked my mom’s friends and Gail for a giant group hug and that was very comforting too.  One of the women said she thought we should say a prayer for my mom, so we said a quick Hail Mary and then the circle was perfectly complete.

Mom would have loved the quilt show and I wish she had been there physically to see it.  Still – I did feel her presence there, and especially through the kindness everyone extended to me.  Three years later, I still miss her a lot.  Mom loved everyone and was a great listener and overall cheerleader. And I still am so incredibly grateful for the care I received from my mom’s friends, especially as they enveloped me in the days between my mom’s death and the funeral.  Meeting some of them at the quilt festival was an extension of that contact and provided me with a support that I will always remember and hold in my heart.