Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Nothing of Significance

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Non-quilters do not understand quilters. Sure, some of them try, like my daughter, Denise, who went with Lori and I to six different quilt shops on Saturday. By about the third shop she was so bored she confided in me that she almost wished she had gone with her dad to look at underground sprinker system parts at Lowe's. Thanks for trying. I do appreciate it. I was not bored even by the sixth shop. In fact, I'm sure I could have gone to six more.

The second example and the title for this post comes from a non-quilter at the Canadian/US border. While crossing said border, my sisters were asked about purchases made in Canada by the US Border Patrol guy. When they said they had bought quilt patterns he said, "Oh, so nothing of significance." Well, I guess what he meant was they didn't spend much money, but to a quilter them's fightin' words. Wisely my sisters did not fight with the guy, who had a sidearm and probably wasn't afraid to use it, and who could have kept them at the border indefinitely and confiscated all their quilty stuff, but we were all a bit up in arms over the casual classification of our treasures as "nothing of significance."

Dear non-quilters, you don't have to like quilting, you just have to understand that we love it. It is of significance to us, and it is seldom, if ever, boring. We quilt because we love the joy of creating. It is not to have a "blanket". I personally don't even care if I keep what I quilt usually. It is the journey that we treasure, not the end result, although it is fun to have a project completed, but, honestly, we are looking forward to the next project (and usually starting it) before the first one is finished. To those of you who try to understand, thank you. To those of you who don't, it's a sad, sad little life you live.

3 comments:

Gayle J. Randall said...

Kaye:

I loved your explanation of what happened to Lori and I at the border. I'm still working on getting caught up after the trip so I can have time to quilt. I love you!

Lori Young said...

I think if I had been the one in the driver's seat I might have done bodily harm. Of course, you would have been telling a very different story, eh?

T Fowler said...

Great story. I can picture the three of you trying to bite your tongues and then having a good laugh after you crossed the border!