cover image The Quilting Path: A Guide to Spiritual Discovery Through Fabric, Thread and Kabbalah

The Quilting Path: A Guide to Spiritual Discovery Through Fabric, Thread and Kabbalah

Louise Silk. Skylight Paths Publishing, $16.99 (175pp) ISBN 978-1-59473-206-5

In the popular trend of connecting spirituality and art, professional quilter and quilting instructor Silk seeks to connect her craft with the mystical Jewish tradition of Kabbalah. While a likely connection exists between creativity, mysticism, and quilting, the book is largely unsuccessful at illuminating it. Each chapter presents one of ten divine attributes posited by Kabbalah, along with a spiritual practice and instructions for a quilt, but there is too little of each of these to be helpful, and the segues between paragraphs and between sections are weak. One chapter, for instance, jumps from a detailed description of how different each of her children is, to a discussion of chesed (unconditional love), to angels, to the Buddhist practice of lovingkindness, and finally to directions for making a baby quilt. The thread-pardon the pun-that connects all of these elements is often unclear. Quilting instructions are minimal, usually two pages per quilt, and the illustrations aren't labeled, making this a book only for experienced quilters. While Silk is clearly knowledgeable about Kabbalah, spirituality, and quilting, she combines too many elements here, creating a mulligan stew that will probably not satisfy either spirituality readers or quilters.