I was walking Finn the other day and decided to ask my mother for some help. Why not? Whether it’s some synaptic crease of memory or a calling across time, if the advice is good it hardly matters.

I would’ve liked direction on my manuscript, but she zeroed in on cloth instead (no surprise, there) (she was a seamstress extraordinaire, remember?)

“Put all the sewing away except for C’s quilt,” she said.

There are two unfinished quilts for C, actually: a pale green one planned as a queen-sized blanket and a smaller log cabin in saturated blue/greens for the couch. The couch quilt was meant to be a quickie, made well in advance of the larger quilt. Ha!

Since the larger bed quilt’s unfinished state more than occasionally keeps me up at night, I got right to it. And guess what? I felt better immediately.

Before and after below. I’d been pinning on top of bed quilt sections for a couple of seasons.

It’s about focus and intention.

A tidier living room makes for a happy secondary benefit.