In Matthew 14 we read of Peter walking on water and just as Peter is overwhelmed with the wind and the waves he calls out “Lord, save me!” and we’re told that ‘immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.’
During this term one of our talented students, Meghan Barbour, was reflecting on these verses and decided to turn her meditation into a piece of art. Meghan has a qualification in costume design and works part-time as a seamstress alongside studying and working with young people in her church in Falkirk. Combining these passions, Meghan created a tapestry banner for the College that’s approximately 2×1.5 meters in size – no easy task!
Meghan writes: “I decided to put my sewing skills to work on something reflecting my faith. I have a degree in Costume Design and the decision to change course and study theology took a lot of thought. However, I thought I could combine both of my passions and use my talents to praise God, then it would be a double win. I had a lot of scrap fabrics and thought a patchwork would be a good place to start.”
Part of her meditation on the story reflects Meghan’s own identification with the passage. “I always liked the image of Peter being pulled out of the water and even people like him having doubts makes me feel slightly better about mine.”
As you can imagine, the process took some time, but it became a bit of a family affair: “I found a stained glass window to reference and started off by drawing it onto a big piece of fabric then making the patchwork. My brother works in a charity shop and was given a bag of old embroidery threads and couldn’t sell them so I had the luxury of getting a huge bag of threads which I used to add in all the details in the faces. I used 45 m of ribbon to mark out the lines of the stain glass working but other than buying the ribbon, I used all old scraps and fabric I needed to use including an old sheet for the backing.”
It now takes pride of place in our classroom at SBC for all to see. We feel very privileged to have such a beautiful piece of work now adorning our walls, made all the more special for it to be a gift from one of our students. Meghan concludes: “It was very fulfilling to create and finishing it felt like an amazing accomplishment.” Thank you, Meghan!
