A good reason to clean

Once, in a faraway land (read: sewing room), a quilter made a beautiful fall quilt. Lots of pretty fall colors and swirling leaves and acorns that were all hand blanket stitched because she did not have a fancy machine. Then she made her first attempt at echo stitching around all the appliques on the machine. And she was pleased that she had gone another step in her quilting. People admired her quilt and wanted to borrow it. Since it was a good friend, she agreed. Months went by and when she went to find her quilt, it was nowhere to be found. Did the friend still have it? No, said the friend, "I returned it long ago." Years passed and she thought fondly of that quilt of the past, wishing she had it.

Cut to the present: Deciding that the hall closet could literally not hold ANOTHER coat or box or thing, it was time to do a little purging. What's in this big box? Oh, the chandelier we bought to match the rest of the new lights we installed in the house. Ceiling too high for hubby to get to it, so in the closet it went. Asking the contractor who was there for another job if he could kindly put it up. Yes and a half hour and $20 later, it was done! What's in this other big box? Oh yeah, all those Precious Moments we packed up so we could move the secretary they were displayed in to tear down wallpaper. Hmm, how many moons ago? Too many years to count. Well, now either I get rid of them or wash them and put them away. And my--what else is in the box? MY QUILT!!!! I had grabbed that quilt to wrap all my precious goodies and forgot about it! I'm sure glad I didn't give my friend a hard time! Do I have egg on my face, or what? What's funny is now that I look at it, many years later, it doesn't look all that great! I still like it, but I did a self binding on it and it's just okay. And the quilting is okay, but I would like to think I have improved since then. What a difference about 8 years makes! I guess that's why we keep our older quilts, we can see how much we have grown. But I'm glad I found it, now I can go back to saying that I have only had ONE quilt taken from me. Unfortunately, I know it was taken. I had done a trunk show featuring all sorts of Memory Quilts and since I had taken so many, when I put them away I didn't count them. Well, a few days later when I unpacked them, it was missing. Too many people to even begin to think of who might have done it and I didn't know them. I'm not sure how that person can even enjoy that quilt, first of all, it contained MY memories and then knowing she took it from someone else. The only thing I could figure is that she liked the idea and wanted to copy it? I could have gladly told her how to do it. Oh well, life goes on and we can't worry about other's conscious.