A while ago I posted how a dear family was leaving our church to move to a different part of the state. I also mentioned how, in a fit of...who-knws-what....I offered to make the family a quilt. Well, that one quilt morphed into 4 - 1 for each ot the boys and 1 for the parents. Today we had a potluck after church and they were presented with their quilts.
Zach, the youngest, and a highly functioning autistic, kept thanking everyone and refused to let his go at all. Bryce, the next oldest, softly whispered thank you to me as he came to get his - he has been the one having issues sleeping at night and being overcome with anxiety about moving. Seth, the oldest, who will be starting college in the fall, was quite literally speechless. Apparently the teenagers were quite good at keeping this a secret.
I saved the one for the parents for last. It was the one I didn't want to finish because, not only have they been our SUnday school teachers, they have been wonderful friends. LEslie has been a wonderful example to me of what a Christian woman/wife/mother should be, and we have worked with each other when it comes to helping our special needs children. It was obvious, during assembly, that I didn't want to do their quilt because, as I was looking over the blocks, I noticed that Ken and i hadn't made one for them!!
However, an unfinished quilt, and all the protests of the church members can't keep them here when they are being led elsewhere, so the quilt was finished. There were 100 blocks in their quilt, which represents only a fraction of the lives they have touched.
I had to give a little speech about how they came to be and explain them to the people at the potluck and to the family. SOme of the people at the potluck weren't able to contribute, but that was fine as well. Jay and Leslie both teared up and I had to warn them not to cry because then I would start - I already had a microphone in my face (I don't usually use them because I'm loud enough without it...when need be) which was making me nervous and edgy, and I was speaking infront of a group of over 100 people....if they started crying, I would have really lost it.
SO, I think they went over extremely well. I made Seth's long enough to fit on his dorm room bed, Bryce's long enough to fit on his bed, Zach's easy enough for him to carry around with him if he needed to, and Jay and Leslie's was queen-sized (with hand stitched binding!! woohoo!! Major step for me...lol).
All this came after helping with food prep and set up, so I was tired and sore, but to see the looks on their faces made everything so much better.
Larisa, who doesn't have pictures uploaded yet, but will try to get them done soon