#8

Recently at church there was a sermon about not loving things, but loving people and using things.  The priest talked about that the instant that we die, our possessions become worthless.  It’s only the connection of an item to a person that gives it any importance. 

When my mom and my aunt were getting my grandparents’ house ready for an estate sale a few years ago, I went by their house to pick out something to take home.  I was shocked to find the sheets that I always slept on when I spent the night at their house folded in the bathroom closet and ready to be sold.  (I can smell the clean, soapy, hint-of-mothballs smell of that bathroom right now.  I wish I had a Dixie cup full of water to drink, then maybe I could get my hair tangled around and stuck in a round brush.)  They were just sheets to my mom and aunt, but they were meaningful to me because of my memories connecting them to my grandparents.

We’ve been using the pillowcases for awhile, but the sheets have been waiting in the closet.  They finally made it into a quilt, some of the fitted sheet pieced into the top, the flat sheet for the backing.

I finally remembered that for my first quilt, I marked the pieces with masking tape to keep myself organized while piecing.  Rush and Tate were happy to remove all the tape and stick it all over their clothes once the piecing was complete.

And now I’m free from the sewing machine, released to months of hand quilting, better known as ‘hours of guilt free tv watching.’