Love the story about the garage sale!

You'll decide (or the quilt will decide for you) when it's time to keep one.
Something in it will touch your heart, and you'll know you can't let it go.
They have a way of talking to you, you know.

Louise in Iowa
"Charlotte Henson" wrote in message
...
My first quilt has a sorta funny story.

Many women in my family are incredible seamstresses but none quilt.

My then boyfriend and I were out looking at garage sales on a Sunday
morning. We followed the signs to one and started looking around. I
found a nice, simple twin-sized grandmother's fan done in blue and
whites and hand-quilted in somewhat large, loose stitches. It has a
poly-cotton sheet backing brought round to the front. Nothing
extraordinary but still pretty.

I wasn't sure exactly who the other man at the sale was. He was the only
one there but he looked like he was going through the things for sale
too. He wasn't the cleanest person I've ever seen. He noticed me looking
around and said somewhat spontaneously "Scott's upstairs, but I can sell
that for him, do you want to buy it?" I said yes and readily agreed to
buy it for the asking price of $5. He looked sorry he hadn't asked for
more but continued to pick stuff up. As we were driving away we saw him
loading "his" things into his shopping cart. The man was homeless. He'd
found these garage sale items left out overnight and must have pocketed
my $5.

I felt guilty about that for a while but then I realized whoever was
selling this stuff didn't care much about it if he couldn't be bothered
to bring it in overnight. The quilt is in far better care in my hands
and the homeless guy probably needed my $5. So I think everything turned
out for the best.

The amusing thing in all of this is that I gave this quilt to my current
boyfriend and have given all the others I've made myself to various
people. So I'm a stealth quilter at my home. It takes a quilter to know
one. You'd see my stash of cottons organized by color and my rotary
cutter and mat. Other than that there isn't a quilt in the place. And it
may be blasphemy but I'm not sure I want one. Maybe it's only the mother
of all quilts for me... Maybe I just haven't found *my* quilting voice.

-Charlotte