Jen's Patched Works' Party

Today was hard. My grandmother made her journey home to our heavenly father at 2:20 a.m., Good Friday. She loved to travel and I can only imagine that this is the beginning of her best trip, yet, starting with the choir of angels, accompanied by a full orchestra, which I am sure greeted her and led the way, rejoicing, to the room that God had waiting just for her.

She had a passion for music and a love of crafting; cross-stitch, needle-point, knitting and quilting. Her prevailing purpose in life, however, was to be mother to seven children, instilling them with values, teaching them faith and giving them wings to soar.

Our relationship has been challenging, but all that melted into the background as I was blessed enough to be able to share significant time with her in these last few days. Over the years, she has hand-crafted me many gifts; treasures, one and all. The best gift I've ever received, however, was the hug she gave me Tuesday evening. I felt so very loved, and reconciled.

I was supposed to go quilting, this evening, with the quilty ladies at Patched Works. After hearing that my grandmother had passed, I just did not feel like going out to whoop-it-up. I spent most of the day having a pity-party and decided that I would just stay home. The more I thought on it, I realized that this would just feed the sadness of loss. There is nothing to be sad about, though, because my grandmother, "Gaga," lived to be 89.5 years old. She lived a full life and was only slowed down by a body that failed to keep up with her spirit. She wouldn't want me to waste a minute feeling sorry for her heavenly reward. So, I went!

Quilting with friends was the best decision. It was a night filled with laughter, silliness and sewing. In other words, it was perfect.

I took several projects to work on, always over-packing to be safe, rather than sorry. As I write this post, though, I realize I don't have a whole lot to show for my seven hours of sewing because one project is still working towards completion and another one is top secret for the next few weeks (How is that for a teaser?). Stay tuned for the top secret project because it's awesome!

In the meantime...

I finished all 32 blocks for the church quilters.

This project ended up being far more labor intensive than I anticipated. Each group of eight took me about 90 minutes from start to finish. Of course, my fellow quilters would mention that the time could have been significantly reduced had I not been such a perfectionist. (Clearly, they are all content with sub-standard work and/or enjoy ripping because they thought I was ludicrous for drawing my sewing line on the small square and using two pins to secure it to the larger block.) Okay, so maybe I am just a teensy bit of a perfectionist. :)

To help break up the project, I alternated between eight blocks for the church ladies and then something else fun, for me. During one of these breaks, I worked on adding ribbing to the Village Bag I showed you last week. I didn't take a picture, though, because it looks just like it did the first time around, only, now it has the ribbing the directions called for...that I apparently chose to read as optional the first time around.

During another break, I worked on the top secret project. From start to finish, it took me about 30 minutes and turned out beautifully. I can't wait to show you, but not yet!

And the last thing I worked on was another one of the Oragomi Gift Bags. I'm making this one as a gift bag for birthday parties. One side has cupcakes. The other side, polka dots. How fun?! I have about five more seams to sew and it will be done. Then, I'll post the finished project.

I had sew much fun throughout the evening that I've already booked the date for next month (4th Friday of each month, 5:30 p.m.-midnight) $10, extended shopping hours, countless laughs and progress on whatever crafty project you bring). If you want to join in the fun, call Patched Works and reserve your spot, too!

Have a Happy and Wondrous Easter!