Whatever the front, there's always a back

Well, today didn't turn out exactly as planned. Went off early morning to my quilting bee -- worked on recutting literally hundreds of pieces that must have been cut by someone after several bottles of something or other. Our queen bee (or whatever the organizer would be called, who knows, I'm new to all this) doesn't want to throw all these squares out, but they are useless until they are actually squares, and not crazy paving rhomboids.

So I'm new, and it's good practice, so I gave myself this job. After all, when done, they'll be assembled into some of the (this is true) hundreds of quilts we will make during the year to give away -- to every Mom and child at the women's shelter, to every person after a fire in their home, to injured veterans at Walter Reed and our local hospitals, and to families of those who have lost a son or daughter or father or mother in this terrible useless war. Maybe you can see why I sit there and get neck pain cutting and cutting but do not stop.

That's the front of quilts. Then I come home, to the huge complicated quilt I'm making for a grand-daughter (only my second quilt, but have you ever seen the "learning" quilts for newbies - too boring for words, so I designed a challenge instead) ... and it's time to give attention to the back. Lots of loose threads, bits left over from sewing, shards falling out from rough edges, bits the sewing machine caught on the underside and pulled the wrong way that need to be resewn.

And I think about life, all that shiny front side stuff, and how it ain't worth a damn without all those willing to do all that clean-up work on the back as well. This day had both, not too bad I say.