“Young Karen Nyberg gazed at the night sky, a silky black quilt with shiny sequins sewn across it … Someday, she told herself, I’ll travel to the stars.”
Karen was overwhelmed by the beauty of space but when she was growing up, NASA’s space program was not open for women. In 1978, Nasa opened their program and Karen knew what she wanted to do.
“…she also loved space. Karen studied and persisted. She practiced and prepared.”
And eventually she was accepted into the program, and years later she had an opportunity to go to space – and she took with her sewing supplies.
She always loved to sew and she wanted to find a way to craft in space but working with needle and thread in microgravity was an entirely different beast.
“If something didn’t work at first, she would thread her way through it until she found a solution – just like she’d done for other experiments.”
But then she started thinking – was there a way to share her little projects with the world?
This was a really neat story about the real life astronaut and how she found a way to make sewn projects in space and share her love for sewing with the world!
This book does a great job of providing a backstory, explaining all the work that goes into becoming an astronaut and also sharing the joy one can obtain from exploring the outer regions of our world.
One thing that stood out to me is that so many times we see science books separate from artsy books, but this book sought to show how her love for crafts made a huge impact on the world.
I really liked learning about the Astronomical Quilt movement that Karen started and how that created a ripple effect across the world!
Another thing: the art style in this one was really beautiful – the way the illustrations were combined with quilted patterns was so cool. And the way they did the background with the sewn stars – loved it!
I do wish there were some photographs at the end – I would have loved to see the stuffed animal that Karen made for her child and some examples of the starry quilts that were made from the movement! That would’ve been so neat!
Overall though, I really enjoyed this one!!
With thanks to the author and Familius Publishing for sending a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
