Did I ever tell you about my Owl Quilt? If I didn't, then now would be an especially good time.
"Why?" you ask?
Well yesterday I went with my friend H to help her buy fabric for a baby quilt she's planning.
A noble mission, right? Except that the very last thing on earth I need to be buying is more fabric. Especially as my sister-in-law decided I should take her considerable fabric stash before she returned to the North. So, in the last few weeks my fabric stash has doubled! My father-in-law's recent death brought home to me the absolute folly of buying anything in these later years that I don't absolutely need. All that will happen is that my children and husband, should he outlast me, will have to deal with it all when I'm gone. Just imagine for a moment what they might do to the contents of my sewing room........
The memorial service is over, the tears have dried up [Gee, that didn't take long!] and now, in great trepidation, they are opening the door to my sewing room.....Listen in.....
"Good Lord! What did mom need so much fabric for?"
"Maybe she was planning to make a special quilt for each of us?"
[Oh dear! That must mean that I kicked the bucket before achieving that goal. What a shame.]
"So, what are we supposed to do with all this crap?"
{Oh, go gently my lovelies....It is not crap. It is beautiful fabric waiting to be made into heirloom quilts. Speak softly and with compassion. While I was alive it knew it was loved. I never referred to it in such disrespectful tones. Have a heart!]
"Well, EB, you're the crafty one. Don't you want to take up quilting?"
"Oh no! Don't be looking at me. I knit. I crochet. I read and I run..I do not quilt."
"Cali Girl then, you own a sewing machine. Don't you want to give a good home to all this lovely fabric and expand your creativity? Come on, you know you want to!"
"No, not really. This is all light-weight cotton. I don't think it would make very good horse blankets. However, Nat is very artistic and crafty....maybe she'd like to have it?"
So now they ruminate on this awhile, standing there in my sewing room, surrounded by all the lovely trappings of the quilting craft. Slight glitch in this latest idea being that Nat, as artistic and creative and crafty as she is, is on the other side of the Atlantic.....and all these tools and fabric would probably sink the boat getting it to her. Hmmm
"Why don't we give it to charity?"
This is where their mother sits up in her grave, hissing, spitting and choking......
So, you get the idea. I need to work with what I have so that my children and grandchildren each have a quilt made for them by me, and not just leave shelves of fabric, the disposal of which would be one more headache for them to deal with when I hang up my rotary cutter.
Enough of listening to imaginary conversations. Back to the present. We headed south to "Quilts on Plum Lane." Even the name gets my mouth watering. And it had to be this particular quilt shop since I had a gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket for months. It was becoming seriously dog-eared in my purse. Time to use it before it disintegrated.
Naturally, when we got there, there was much oohing and aahing, and of course we found fabric we had to take home with us. The gift certificate served to assuage any guilt I might have felt [Irish upbringing.]
Bless me father for I have sinned, again. But in my defense I present my owl quilt [as proof that I do, occasionally, finish something, thereby somehow justifying the acquisition of more fabric----as long as what comes in is less than what went out----sounds reasonable?]
