Making this Chuppah Quilt Changed My Life

This quilt changed my life.

My friend Lily moved in two houses down when we were 3 and 4, and we have been close friends ever since. So when she and her then-fiance Luke asked me to make a quilt to be the chuppah at their wedding, I immediately started tearing up.

In Jewish tradition, a chuppah is a canopy that covers the marriage ceremony, representing the home that the couple will create together. It has no walls, symbolizing that the couple and their new home exist within the very community that surrounds them at the ceremony. Some chuppahs are made of tallits, which are prayer shawls, or for the less religious, other family heirlooms such as tablecloths and quilts are common choices. The chuppah is one of my favorite elements of a Jewish wedding ceremony, and to be asked to play such a meaningful role in such a dear friend’s wedding was a major honor.

But here is how making this quilt changed my life. The process challenged several powerful limiting beliefs that I’ve held for years, like: I can’t do math. I can’t manage my time. I can’t work hard. And most importantly: I can’t get better at anything.

As the quilt started to come together, I understood the power of letting myself be bad at things. Now, I’ve become obsessed with embracing being bad at things, which is just another way of saying I am actively seeking out things to be a beginner at, which in a meta way, I am also a beginner at.

I’ve started running and lifting weights, taken on graphic design clients, and finally opened The Moonbelly Shop. All of these things terrified me for different reasons, but I have already gotten so much better at each of them.

It might be from years of ballet class, or my family history, or simply being socialized as a woman, but I have lived a lot of my life with the subconscious belief that risks are only okay if they succeed. In other words, that it’s not okay to be bad at something.

Consciously, I believe mistakes and so-called failures are often beautiful, necessary, and powerful teachers. But what we know consciously and what we feel subconsciously can sometimes be oceans apart.

Taking on this project felt like a huge risk because I truly had no idea if I could make what I had envisioned in my head. As I worked on it, a few people asked if I knew how to make a quilt like this. Each time, I would answer with a laugh, “No!” Luckily, the risk paid off, and the quilt is an artifact that I’m incredibly proud of.

Once it was complete, the quilt and Josh and I drove from his dad's in New Jersey to Brooklyn for the wedding. One of Luke’s childhood friends built the frame, and together we set it up. It was so special to finally see it in the place it was always meant to be. The ceremony was beautiful, the reception was super fun and delicious, and the night ended with me removing the stitching for the ties while Rihanna played.

Lily and Luke, thank you for trusting me with this project and for letting me go on my own little journey with it. May you have many, many, many years of wedded bliss!

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