A Quilter's Guide to Weight Loss

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for fabric and chocolate

Over the years I have discovered that my closet, or possibly just those plastic hangers, have caused by clothes to shrink.  As I approach middle age (assuming I will live to be 146) I have come across a new weight loss program.

It involves location, activity, and obsession. I shall explain.

There are three reasons I overeat.  Boredom, boredom, and boredom.  Oh and total lack of interest in anything domestic, well except ironing and laundry.  I do like to do that. If you have read any of my writings before, you know I come from a long line of non-cookers so eating food was never a gastronomic highlight in my formative years. I ate food (mainly sandwiches, hard to burn those) so I would not pass out or get a headache or have my clothes fall off.

When I was teaching theatre, raising six children, and putting in 18 hour days, overeating was not an option, because a) there was never time, and b) with six children groceries seldom lasted long enough to get from the car to the pantry.  Now that I have retired and with only two additional children at home, there is a) more time between school pick-up and drop off, b) food actually makes it to the pantry, and c) I do not have four major productions a year to keep me out of the refrigerator and at rehearsal. Hence BOREDOM.

I tried substitute teaching and that helped but you can’t substitute teach every day.  I tried “Sweating to the Oldies” at home but I noticed no matter how many times I watched that video, nobody ever lost any weight.  I have even gone to yoga classes and while I stretched every known and unknown muscle in my body, I seemed to always reward myself for such a strenuous workout with a Big Mac and ice cream.

Now my Mother was excellent with making coconut pies, chocolate pies, and divinity candy, but my doctor tells me you cannot live by sugar alone.  I beg to differ, she’s 96, but in my case my waist line and my closet say my body is gaining weight.  So it has come to this:  What can I do that is fun, time consuming, produces a finished product, and does not encourage hangers to shrink my clothes?  

Mother, was an excellent seamstress and she did beautiful embroidery work.  She taught me when I was very young.  My mother-in-law always had a quilt frame up so I spent lots of time watching her quilt.  As I made my fourth trip to the refrigerator to check and make sure the pie had not spoiled, it hit me.  I would take up quilting…fun, time consuming, finished product, and no time for eating (I get obsessive and can’t wait to see the finished product).

We built our house to accommodate eight people, not quilting, so my quilt frame has been in several places.  I tried the living room but Dr. Hubby kept running into it at night and company had a hard time talking over an 8x10 foot frame in the middle of the room.  I moved to the play room but that is where Dr. Hubby watches his westerns.  I have seen “The Rifleman’s” son go through puberty six times.  The only room left was the dining room, which is only used twice a year because, well, the cooking thing.  I put the frame in the dining room.  After several quilts and many years later, I noticed that those size ** plus pants that had moved to the far end of my closet, were creeping back to the "this fits" section.  It couldn't be food,  I still couldn't cook,  It had to be inactivity.  No matter how fast I stitched I was only moving my arms,  I was still sitting.  I was not about to quit quilting.  And that is when I discovered the Quilters Diet.

It is all about location.  I am already in the dining room…quilt/food… full…, but here is the secret.  My dining room has three entrances, one leads to the hall, one to the living room and one to the kitchen.  My quilt frame takes up 90% of the floor space.  To get from one side of the frame to another, I have to go out the entry way and back through the living room entrance or out the kitchen entrance and circle around back through the living room.  Plus, to get around the frame corners, I have to suck up those stomach muscles.  Depending on the size of the quilt and the amount of quilting, and how many times I have to go back for thread, scissors, thimble etc. I can lose 3 lbs. to the quilt.  

Weight Watchers, Nutri-System, Jenny Craig, beware!  The “Quilters Diet” combines form, function, fun, a finished product and lost poundage…ok and a dining room with three entrances and a little quilting obsessive compulsion.   But hey, if it works...why not?

Old Quilts, Old Songs, Old Joy

by Jody Worsham
All rights reserved....for days such as this!

The Piece Makers, our local quilting guild, have been meeting at the Treatment Center for  Alzheimer's every Wednesday for several decades. The money they make for quilting for the public goes toward helping to fund the center.  They also make quilts for their annual bazar.

I have been a volunteer "guest" quilter off and on for the past twenty years.  I enjoy the conversations and the fellowship.   I am in no way up to their level of artistry or standards, but I do fairly well on a straight line.

This past week a lady brought in a quilt started by her aunt many years ago.  When the aunt passed away and her house was being disposed of, the niece found all of these tiny two inch squares scattered in the yard and throughout the house.  Tiny pieces from sugar sacks, flour sacks, and woolen shirts. Each piece had been meticulously cut.  Some of the squares had already been pieced into what would be a "nine-patch" pattern and some had only been cut.  She could not stand for this piece of family history to be treated in such a manner, so she gathered them all up.

At home she washed and pressed each piece; then pieced them together in the pattern her aunt had started.  She brought it to the Treatment Center to be quilted.  That was the quilt we were working on this Wednesday.

This quilt was pure art and fine craftsmanship.  All of the square corners matched exactly. Each nine patch was precisely six inches square.  As I was threading my needle to begin, I thought of the hours  and hours it took to get the quilt to this point.

As we laughed and talked I found myself wishing I knew the story behind each square.  Was this patch first a flour sack, then a little girl's dress or maybe an apron?  After being handed down and worn again and again, were these two inch squares all that could be salvaged and used yet again?

As we quilted and discussed the intricate squares,  an older man and a few members of his church choir arrived to entertain the alzheimer clients.  They were in the recreation room right next to the room where we were quilting. As they were setting up, I mentioned that I would like to find a country church that still sang the old church songs I grew up singing as a teenager.

"Well, I go to a little country church but that doesn't mean they still sing the old songs," commented the lady to my left.

"No, you would be hard pressed to find a church that still sings the old songs," said the lady quilting across from me. "I miss those songs."

Just then we heard the sounds of the piano giving the introduction as they began to sing.  Floating into the room, a strong single voice carrying the melody amidst beautiful accompanying harmony came "I'll Fly Away",  "In the Sweet By and By",  "Onward Christian Soldiers" and "Amazing Grace", "The Old Rugged Cross", "Just as I Am", "Shall We Gather at the River" .  The songs continued for another twenty minutes; each one calling up forgotten memories; each song seeming to make the needles glide effortlessly through the quilt. Aged backs straightened a bit, smiles creased lined faces, and our voices joined in singing the familiar words.

Had a photograph  been taken at that moment, no doubt it  would have captured pure joy...and, yes, it probably would have appeared as a brown tintype.