Bumps in the Road

Life is full of the unexpected. Bumps in the road. So when the bride called yesterday morning to ask me not to use the family fabrics in her chuppah, I was thrown for a loop. I won't go into her reasons for it out of respect for her privacy. She is the bride, it is her chuppah and her decision. And there is plenty of time to change things to accommodate her wishes. So I have no anger towards her.

My dilemma now is what to do with the naked cq squares. Because of the family fabrics used, I don't want to use them in someone else's chuppah but I think that if I make a wall-hanging type quilt for charity, it will honour those whose fabrics I have used. And since it looks damn good and will probably be even better when embellished, that is probably what I will do.

Her call came in the morning, and it put a crimp into my plans for the day because I had planned to work on the chuppah all day. Instead, I got busy on the baby quilt. I got the top cut, most of it sewn. The fish fabric is directional and I made an error in the piecing. When I "righted" the fabric, the plain coloured squares were no longer in the order I had originally planned, but I was too lazy for ripping so if anyone is looking for a pattern other than alternating fish, colour, fish, colour, you won't find it. It's not too obvious and again, I have something against ripping. Whenever my husband is dissatisfied with some handiwork he's done, my motto is "the big picture". In the big picture, it won't be that noticeable.

In the evening, Devorah picked me up and we went to Shloimeh and Zena's for a Chanuka party. It was very nice. Growing up, we were very close with my maternal first cousins -- Alissa, Brochy, and Leah. Probably because we were very close in age. Between my sister Bat-Sheva and Alissa is half a year, Alissa and me nine months, me and Brochy about a year (I think), Brochy and Devora about three years, and then Devora and Leah are also either a few months or a year. And our extended family "entertainment" involved visiting one another. I have younger siblings but they were born later on and Shloimeh and Zena's son was born when I was already 17.

Brochy, one of Shloimeh and Zena's daughter's, was in with her husband, Vernon. They live in Chicago so we don't see them all that often. And their oldest daughter, Hadassa and new husband, Chaim, are visiting from Israel. So it was very nice to meet him and renew the family connection. And when we left, big snow flakes were falling, the trees were lightly dusted and it was magical. Except for the slush...

Today, I am again homebound, of design, and will shortly commence work on the baby quilt, finish sewing the top, choose a backing fabric from my stash -- it feels good to be able to say that -- sandwich and maybe even quilt it. I will then bite the bullet and rip the cq from the chuppah. I may even be brave enough to sandwich my own quilt. If I machine meander quilt the baby quilt, it will be good practice for quilting mine.