Giving away quilts

I give away a lot of quilts. In fact, most of them go out the door! Tom is lucky to have one of his own, that's for sure. This quilt was recently mailed off to my cousin, Sue, who lives in Minnesota. Sue is having knee surgery soon and I thought she could use a fabric "hug" as she recovers. Sue and I are close in age, although I've never felt we've been close in other ways. Every summer when I was a kid, we'd go on vacation to visit relatives. There was great-aunt Annie and great-uncle Elmer in Alberta, Canada; Aunt Hattie and her family in Missouri; my grandfather and an uncle, aunt and cousin in California; and Sue and her family in Minnesota. I can remember one of our first trips to Minnesota. I was pretty excited because finally, there was a cousin MY age to play with! At home, all my girl cousins were my older sister Marigene's age and as such, were "her" cousins. (or so she told me) I was looking forward to having a cousin my own age to play with, but as luck would have it, it didn't turn out that way. Since there was no one else for Marigene to hang out with, she took Sue for her own and once again, I was left in the cold. Sue was dazzled, I suppose, than an older cousin would pay attention to her, but it did hurt my feelings when they told me to "go away, we don't want to play with you!" Fortunately, I had a little brother who didn't mind my company, so I wasn't totally without a playmate. The first visit after Marigene got married--and wasn't vacationing with us anymore, I was about 15 years old. We arrived at Sue's house, where her step-mother told me how excited Sue was that I was there, and told me to go over to the house where Sue was babysitting. Sue? Excited to see me? Since she never had been before, I thought this was pretty strange. But then, Marigene wasn't around, so I figured that made me acceptable company! Sue greeted me like we were long-lost buddies. Weird. I always liked trips to Missouri better because there, we had two girl cousins: Teresa, who was Marigene's age, and Ellen--who was my age. In Missouri, I actually had a cousin to play with--because Marigene (always a bully, even now) didn't want her. She had Teresa. Ellen and I had good times and she is still my favorite cousin although the miles and years have come between us. However, I do care about Sue! Knee surgery is a pretty tramatic event. I hope she gets better quickly and in the meantime, she has a quilt to cuddle with as she heals.

But back to giving away quilts. Here's another baby quilt, given away this week to my friend Jodi. Jodi's daughter, Jessica is due with a little boy--any minute now! I've known Jessica for years; watched her grow from a teen to a lovely young mother of two small girls. Actually, I would have been thrilled to make quilts for Jessica's daughters when they were born, but since Jessica doesn't live around here...and Jodi hadn't even mentioned Jessica was pregnant, well...they didn't get quilts. It's nice to get a little advanced notice! This time, however, Jodi was over visiting and her phone kept ringing. She mentioned how Jessica was at a doctor's appointment and due to have the baby soon. Jessica, pregnant? How exciting! As it happened, I just finished up this quilt a couple of days ago, putting the last stitches in the binding and wondering what cute little baby would end up cuddling with it. I don't always have a person in mind when I make a quilt, but like this, the opportunity always seems to present itself. MUST MAKE QUILTS!!! I pulled out the quilt and gave it to Jodi. She was very happy and kept hugging me! I asked her to tell Jessica there would have been quilts for her girls, but her mother is a SLACKER and didn't tell me about them! Ooh well. I hope she likes this one and with any luck, maybe I'll have a photo of the baby with the quilt to post here. Eventually. Although considering Jodi and our communication problem, maybe not! LOL