“Dream Brother”

This quilt is a gift for my brother and his fiancée as they embark in marriage. It began with color: quiet blues, greens, and deep shadowy tones, all from hand‑dyed fabrics I purchased and pieced together.

I started this quilt with a different name in mind - A Hundred Ways to Kneel - a phrase that felt like a blessing, honoring the everyday gestures that make a marriage. I loved the idea that each triangle could signify one of those gestures, the little devotions that accumulate into a luminous life together. But as the quilt grew, as the colors deepened and the geometry found its center, another name began to hum underneath it.

I was listening to a lot of Jeff Buckley while sewing, and Dream Brother kept rising to the surface. It felt like Mike. It felt like Stef. It felt like the two of them together - tender, imaginative, a little cosmic. It felt like the way my brother has always been a dreamer and held space for possibility, the way he has been a dream brother to me: supportive, kind, someone whose hopes for his life I want to see come true.

On the back of the quilt, there’s a panel of the solar system from the 90s - something that nods to Mike’s love of space, of vastness that never ends, of the way he thinks in horizons. (Also, you will never convince us Pluto is not a planet). Beside it is an homage to Brazilian coffee, a gesture toward Stef’s family and their rich agricultural roots in Brazil. I wanted the back to feel like a map of where they come from and where they’re going.

I love that my brother and I are getting married in the same year. There’s something sweetly parallel about two siblings stepping into new futures at the same time, carrying our own quilts of hope and devotion. Dream Brother is my wish for him: that his marriage be as expansive as the night sky, as warm as a cup of coffee shared, and as full of possibility as the dreams he’s always carried. May everyday gestures of love and devotion form a luminous marriage.

This quilt measures 50 × 50.