Quilty Angels Amongst Us!

I know you think I’m a deadbeat – NO Quilty Box drawing happened last night!

When asked to go out to dinner, I’m no fool.

Of course – that means small town restaurant appeal: Great home style cooking served up with a side of sweet southern drawl and a tall iced tea with lemon.

Only the place we were going had a sign on the door “We will be closed for family vacation between this date and this date.”

Again – small town living!  All of the employees also got family vacation time.  In this day and age of employment, it is pretty much unheard of.

We ended up at our favorite Mexican place – and then the real reason for the “Would you like to go to dinner?” invitation was revealed.

“I need to make a stop at Lowes…..”

And that has nothing to do with the title of this post, or in a round about way it does.  And if you give me a minute, I’ll get there!

This picture at the top!  How fun is this!

I was sent this photo by Caroline & Mary who popped by the Inn on their way last week to or from somewhere.

PHOTO OP!!

I love that you are so excited, and your excitement fuels my own.  This same day I received another message from a friend in Georgia who was on her way north for a family funeral. “I’ve just checked into Mouth of Wilson!” the message read.

I think we are putting this no-where of a place on the MAP!

And then a message from Pam whom I’d never met pinged my phone via Facebook messenger just as we were arriving in town for dinner last night. (See, I told you there was a segue!) There is a long stretch of highway with no service at all, and then bam….everything starts pinging my phone playing catch-up.

Oh my goodness!  Heavy and Fragile?!

From a quilt friend I had never met in person?

And she explained the same thing….had no service until she got about 40 miles east up the road and could let me know what she had done.

And we still had those in town errands to run.  My dinner was consumed in a hurry – I needed to go, go, go and find out what this was.

But first – Auto Zone for a battery.  And then Walmart for groceries.  And a computer monitor.  And…..more stuff than we had planned on acquiring.  Time was ticking!

And then the Lowes trip happened.  Cinder blocks for this project, lengths of gutter for the other project, tubes of this, packages of that…a bench grinder for sharpening lawn mower blades.

I’m getting very antsy by this time-

At the check out line……”Wait a minute….there is something I forgot, just stay right here with the cart.” 

I am NOT a patient waiter!

And I shall call this “Sunset Over Dollar Tree.”

An Appalachian Still Life

From the parking lot at Lowe’s, West Jefferson, North Carolina!

Can we GO NOW?!

Black plastic trash bag, on the porch, envelope addressed to me!

This reminds me.  I need to make friends with the postal folks about a mile up the road at the newer post office.  Let them know I’m here.  Just in case someone sends something without a street address on it!  They might not take as kindly to it as my Wallburg, NC post office folks do!

What is in this bag?  It’s lumpy, heavy, and doesn’t feel fragile, but what the heck is in it?

We pulled it in off the front porch, turned the lights on in the foyer and began to untie the bag tails to get a peek.

Angels.  Amongst Us.  Every Day.

Ikea lights for sewing tables in a scrappy mix of colors.  How did she know I planned on furnishing work spaces with these?

Beautiful twin sheet sets – enough for 9 beds.  I am in tears by this time, and poor Dave – he got a first hand witness of just how kind and caring and supportive quilters can be.

I needed these words so badly yesterday!

YOU are making our dreams come true.  With boundless love.  And it has left me speechless.  Pam, I can't thank you enough.  This is incredible. 

Another quilter contacted me yesterday about her mother’s blue willow dishes in Albuquerque.  She is in California.  We both agreed the distance would be a hindrance, but I set about figuring out a way to have her dishes find new life at the Inn.

Nancy, another friend - will be traveling this way from Arizona this time NEXT YEAR with her RV on a trip.  She is bringing me a phone chair, that belonged to HER mother – thinking I might want it after I lost the one in Wilkesboro several months back, not knowing we were even purchasing the Inn at the time.  ANGELS AMONGST US!

I contacted Nancy back, let her know that Deb had dishes in Albuquerque and could she pick them up on her way – NEXT YEAR – and pony express those to me, too.  YES!

Meanwhile, Deb is pleading with her brother to hold on to them ONE MORE YEAR so that they can find their way here with Nancy.

And that’s not all.  Yesterday there were emails from others about antique dining room tables, and sewing machines in cabinets and we are scrambling like crazy trying to figure out the logistics of getting things from the east side of Virginia to here, or from Georgia to here.

While in New Hampshire, we were offered a couple more sets of vintage twin beds from a quilter in Massachusetts who is arranging to pony express these via another quilter from a neighboring state to my workshops at Mary Koval’s in Bedford, PA in August. 

I am just blown away.  It’s like Christmas every day!

Today I’m headed out to pick up a couple more twin bead frames handmade in Iowa in the 1950s according to the donor, and a treadle machine she has never used along with a collection of irons and toy machines that belonged to her own mother.  It’s a couple hours drive, and we will enjoy lunch together and much chat before we load the goodies up and bring them back up here.

I’m spending much of my free time on the road gathering these gifts, all with a sense of overwhelming wonder.  And gratitude!  The sooner we get this place furnished and ready, the sooner we can OPEN!

This was the rest of my yesterday.

I’m almost half done with combing this manuscript looking for edits that need to happen.  Some wording, some pressing directions, a bit of correction on quilt layout diagrams, it can be pretty mind numbing.

This is the part I panic over.  The message at the top of the page says things like “CRITICAL NOTE: This is your last chance to make text/image corrections.”  LAST CHANCE!!

And I know even though teams of folks have worked on this – many many pairs of eyes going over each and every detail, it all comes down to me. Any mistakes are MY FAULT. 

Talk about pressure.

The eyes see what the mind knows what you want to say.  It’s so easy to miss some little detail that is not so little to someone who is trying to make a quilt from your directions.

I may strive for excellence, but I will never achieve perfection.  None of us will.

I’m glad I’m taking most of today off to give myself a break – I’ll be back at this tomorrow.

Oh, and that Quilty Box drawing?  It will happen tonight.  Those entries aren’t going anywhere!

Quiltville Quote of the Day!

Quilt found in Edmonds, Washington.

Can you imagine what the world would be like if we encouraged this to happen?

My thanks to my friend Sally for the quote.