Closet Quilter

by Jody Worsham
All rights reserved for Speed Quilting


When my creative writing hits a snag, I seek other creative endeavors for awhile. Usually I try to cook something but Dr. Hubby just replaced the batteries in the smoke alarms so that is not a good idea.


I am now quilting. This is supposed to be a subway tile type quilt. Mine looks more like an earth quake hit the tiles on the quilt. That is not entirely my fault.  I shall explain.

Our house has been "under construction" for the past 36 years.  The stairs have needed a railing for the past four years.  THE day I set up my quilting frame (four 2x2 boards balancing precariously on 4 folding chairs), battle the batting, fight the pieced quilt top, and wage war getting the bottom cover in place with everything pinned down, Dr. Hubby decides to hire a contractor to finish the stair case.  After moving the entire frame and having it fall from the folding chairs twice, the earthquake quilt  also looked like a tsunami was approaching the lower  half.  But I digress.


 My problem, one of many, is that I get a little bit of information, then run 90 miles an hour trying to get it done so I can see what it is going to look like.  This was my first pieced quilt.  Cutting cloth into rectangles then sewing them together seemed fairly easy.

To cut the rectangles, I got the self-healing cutting mat, the rotary cutters like the real quilting ladies said, but nobody told me to cut only two or three pieces at a time. I figured I would save time and cut about six or nine pieces at a time.

Unfortunately my cardboard template kept getting shaved a little bit by the rotary cutter every time I cut a chunk of material so that by the time I had cut 250 blocks... well let's just say my corners no longer had right angles.


I am really a closet quilter meaning my quilts should remain in the closet unless a sever blizzard is in the forecast.


I learned a long time ago to use a printed fabric for the bottom of my quilts to hide my stitches. This time I used fabric covered in stars. The neat thing is when the eight-year-old was playing under my makeshift quilting frame he said "Hey, Mama when I'm sleeping at night, now I'll be sleeping under the stars."

So my quilt will never be entered in a quilting show with members of the Quilters Guild and it will never win a blue ribbon, but maybe one day a grown man will say to his little boy "Want to sleep under the stars?"

The Great Wolf-at-your-Door-Mortgage-the-House Lodge and Waterpark

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for evidence of functioning brain cells

Last week I left home for Dallas with the six-year-old and the ten-teen to meet my sister, her husband, and their two grandkids for Great Wolf Lodge and Indoor Waterpark, otherwise known as the Great Mortgage the House, Weight Loss and Indoor Climb-a-Mountain Chlorine Treatment Park.

I had promised the children I would take them to a water park this summer but it was just too hot to be outside all day. My sister mentioned a wonderful waterpark that was indoors. Great! Count me in. I had not anticipated the need to mortgage the house in order to pay for the trip nor did I anticipate having to participate in their weight loss program. In order to slide down any of the six gigantic-more-fun-than-you-can-imagine slides with my two children, whom I am determined will not miss out on anything by having older parents, you have to climb up six flights of stairs carrying a two man inner tube.

The very first thing the six-year-old and I did was go down the two person inner tube slide. I figured I'd better climb early before the legs and knees totally gave out. Upon reaching the third story of stairs, I noticed there were no oxygen tanks on any of the landings. As I arrived at the top gasping for air, there wasn't time to read all the instructions for the two person inner tube, much less follow them, before the rushing water started us down the never-ending- slide to hell.

Half way down with one leg flayling to the north, my other flopping to the south and my butt creating tsunami waves in the middle, we were flipped out of the inner tube. I grabbed the six-year-old in true Mother Wolf pack fashion and held on to him while banging my elbow against the slide and grabbing the inner tube. Evidently the inner tube arrived at the pool before we did. To his credit, the baby life guard was leaning over the edge, whistle in his mouth and the giant red life preserver tube at the ready when I finally surfaced. As we drug ourselves out of the pool, the six-year-old noticed my elbow was bleeding profusely (dang those baby aspirin) so I had to go to the first aid station for a Band-Aid, which resulted in an accident report.

First Aid Life Guard: What happened?'

Super Mom (that would be me): I banged my elbow on the slide?

FALG: Which slide?

SM: The yellow one.

FALG: Cause?

SM (Because 67 is the new 47?) We obviously did not get into the inner tube correctly.

FALG: Age?

SM: (silence, then) Old enough to know better and young enough to try it anyway.

FALG: I need an age. an age range?

SM: Ok, over fifty and under a hundred.

FALG: Thank you.

That afternoon I told the six-year-old to pick his very favorite slide to go down because there was only one climb left in me. The ten-teen was tall enough to handle all the slides except the Texas Tornado. Fortunately, my brother-in-law said he would go down with her. The six-year-old told everybody quite loudly "I'm too little to go down the Texas Tornado and my mama is too… (he caught himself just before "old") likely to hit her elbow again." The child is a born politician. The rest of the day was spent splashing in the wave pool and dodging water gun cannons.

That evening with the aid of mega doses of aspirin, Advil, Ben Gay, Tylenol, and a heating pad big enough to wrap around my entire body, I fell asleep.

Even though it cost a small fortune, I did lose a pound or two and the waterlogged smiles on the faces of the children was worth it. At least that's what I told myself as I put another band-aid on my elbow.