I’ve been away from the sewing room for a while. Vacations to Maine, appointments, meetings, lawn parties, and road trips have been fun, but it’s time to get back to quilting. Two quilts are basted and ready to quilt. A quilt has been loaded onto the Grace frame and is ready to quilt. I can go into the sewing room with the fan and the little air conditioner and be comfortable with this heat.

Fortunately, my wonderful long arm quilter has finished some of my tops. The quilts are bound. Now, I have to decide what to do with them.

The first quilt used lots of my precut blocks. It will go into my gift pile. I’ll decide who gets it by Christmas time. Maybe someone in my family will claim it before then.

The second quilt has been sitting on a shelf for years. I had a class with Bethany Reynolds at the Vermont Quilt Festival years ago. She taught the Stack and Wack procedure. Everyone else in the class used beautiful floral fabric. I used a scenic print of golfers from the 1930s. This was the only class that I ever took in Vermont where I finished the project in class. The others held up their lovely floral beauties and I had to hold up “body parts”. When you stack and wack people, there are body parts going around in a circle. It was a lesson learned and the quilt top has set on a shelf for years.

I was tired of looking at it and decided to send it to my long arm quilter. She did wonders with this quilt. From a distance, it is a lovely Christmas Star quilt. Then you come in close and see the body parts. I’ve been told that I have to rename this quilt, but it will always be “Body Parts” to me.

I’m going to keep this one and hang it on the wall at Christmastime. The message is that broken lives can be pieced together into something beautiful with God’s help.

Have a great day and happy quilting.