Get the Thread Out

Until I got one for a wedding present, I had never had a store-bought blanket. My mom made them all. Some were quilts and some were afghans, but all were home-made. There are some I still use to this day. Some of them my kids have appropriated. Some of them I've kept safe and away from their sticky little grubby hands. My mom was / is always working on something. Once we had a giant quilt-sized tambour frame in our living room for a few months while my mom made a big quilt by hand. Quilt making was the go-to gift for all newlyweds and all babies when I was growing up. All my kids have their own quilts made by their Grammy.


I decided it was probably time to make my own quilt.


Two things happened the year The Girl started 2nd grade.


1) I got a sewing machine for my birthday with the intention of making a quilt.
2) The Girl got a kitten. She named it Pauly. Pauly was a very cute kitten who liked to spelunk the curtains. Today, 9 years later, Pauly is a big fat stupid cat. He is very loving and sweet and doesn't really do anything bad. He's just huge and has a brain the size of a poppy seed.


Excited to start my first quilt I went to the fabric store, bought fabric in complementary colors, created a pattern using my mad MS Excel skills and cut out 4"x4" squares.


I laid out the squares on the living room floor just like my mom does. I lined up my rows in little piles ready to sew, just like my mom.


The first night of sewing, I sewed three or four rows of squares.


Being lazy and not thinking, I didn't put the sewing machine away when I got tired. I left it on the table and went to bed.


When I woke up the next morning and the spool of thread was on the floor, all unraveled, and most of it missing.  The cat was in the corner of the kitchen trying to hack up thread.


Not knowing how much he had eaten or how serious the situation was, we all went to work and school only to return finding the kitty in the bathtub breathing heavily and not being very responsive. We took him to the pet hospital to learn of our options in helping Pauly get well. Being that Pauly was only about 12 weeks old, being that Pauly was The Girl's first pet of her very own, and being that it was my fault the stupid cat ate the thread in the first place we opted for the most expensive course of action; surgery. At about 12 weeks old our very sweet, cuddly and stupid cat had surgery to get the thread out. The thread he had eaten was all tied up in his intestines, so much so that the doctor had to cut some of his intestines out in order to remove all the thread.


I put the sewing machine back in the box, along with the partially made quilt and never took my sewing machine out again, save for making a few pa'u and bringing it out when my mom visited so she could do my mending.


A few months ago my mom was visiting. I asked her to fix my sewing machine because it was doing something funky, but I don't have the sewing machine vocabulary to explain it to you and you probably don't care anyways. She fixed it. I showed her the quilt I started making 9 years ago. She took it out of the box and put it in her suitcase.


Last night I opened the box of Christmas presents she sent us for the Kiddies. In the box along with the Kiddies' presents was the quilt.


So big giant thank you to my mom for finishing what I started. It is just big enough to fit me and my Kiddies on the couch to make snuggle bugs and cuddle fish while we watch TV.
..... or for Pauly.