Let Me Tell You a Little Story....

Once upon a time there was a woman who had a farm and a wonderful husband. They were happy and in love and worked hard. She raised organic vegetables and sold them to very appreciative customers in the city, several years before the magazines started writing prose about "farm-to-table" or CSA's and featuring very well styled photos of idyllic farm-side dinner parties.

Then the love brought along babies. One thing led to another and then there were two. The woman wanted to raise her babies without the demands of a farm and a huge mortgage and so they all packed up and moved to Beverly the nearby small town and they were quite happy even though they missed the farm. To Thing One and Thing Two was added a Little Boy Blue.

The woman, who had begun to think of herself as just a mother, was fully immersed in being a mom and very grateful that the three babes and home were her only responsibility. Sometimes the mothering took every bit of patience and more that she had and she knew without a doubt that if her responsibilities were any greater she would completely lose her mind. She had no idea how working moms managed, nor how any single parents survived. She was in awe of so many moms that she saw.

And then it hit: cancer. Her strong, handy hubby had a huge tumor under his armpit. The first surgeon said "We'll do everything we can to save the arm". Losing an arm would be a death sentence to the man who loved working with his hands. Thankfully the first surgeon was wrong and referred us to another surgeon. Breast feeding Little Boy Blue gave way to many, many babysitters and long chemo infusions.

It was a dark, dark, time.

But there was a tiny glimmer of hope. Hubby was a rock. A very tired, grayish, hairless rock. The woman filled her time at the cancer center with prayer and pages and pages of doodled quilting designs. One co-occupant of the infusion room asked, "Are you an artist?" The woman laughed, blushed, and said "Oh, no."

Cancer got its butt kicked.

The budget got a good beating too.

The husband grew a beard but kept his head shaved. He got a tan and began working again. Many praises were lifted up.

The woman was quilting and seemed like she'd never stop. The stitches kept her life from falling to pieces when everything else came undone; the dishes, the laundry, the cooking. There were small contributions made to the floundering finances from the works of her hands.

And the woman started to feel like more than just a mother again. She was still very happy to have had all the time she had focusing on her children when they were little and needed her most but she wanted to be her own person too sometimes. Maybe, just maybe she was becoming an artist after all. The quilting introduced her to people who weren't always talking about babies and housekeeping.

She began sharing her quilting adventures in the big world of the internet. She kept stitching. She entered a show with a quilt that had all her pain and fear, but also hope, stitched into it from the dark time of cancer. Eventually, someone asked her to quilt a top for them. Then she began teaching classes on free motion quilting. She began working with the very nice older gentleman who sold her the first Janome she every had.

Videos were made, pictures were taken, posts were posted and shared, and the blog grew and grew.....

Thanks for joining me on my adventure!

Where will it lead?