Ripping out the Quilt

I have begun working on a new quilt.

The first quilt of this type I made was inspired by a quilt I saw in The Bombay Company. It was simply rows of straight, narrow strips of different fabrics quilted with straight black stitches. It was gorgeous beyond its simplicity. The quilt was made of all different types of fabric, some satin, some velvet; of many different rich colors. I fell in love with it immediately. Until, that is, I looked at the price tag.

"$200?", I'm quite sure I said this aloud in the store. "I can make this quilt myself for $20!" I told Glen. Then I set out immediately to do so. The result was a beautiful quilt that still drapes our bed to this day. Instead of batting, I quilted a lightweight blanket inside, so the weight and warmth it provides in the winter is very comforting.

The next adventure of quilts of this nature turned into a "two at once" special. I began making a pretty yellow and white one for a good friend's new house. She had moved hundreds of miles away and I wanted her to have something bright and cheerful to remind her of the friends who so loved her at home. At the same time our son was deployed to Iraq and I started one to represent his team and to present to him upon his arrival home.

Since that flurry of quilting activity, I haven't worked on a quilt. For five years, my quilting frame has been still. Once I purchased fabrics and even began cutting it into strips, but then life intruded and I put it all away.

Last night I was sewing the different colored strips together. From my vantage point above the sewing machine, it looked as if everything was going according to plan. It wasn't until I ironed the quilt top that I realized the big mistake that had been made. While I was sewing one of the strips, the underside of the material had gotten caught up with what I was sewing. This caused a large piece of the quilt sewn to itself where it shouldn't have been.

Immediately I thought of the verse, "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Proverbs 16:25). I thought my strips were sewing correctly, but instead I had made a big mistake that I had rip out and resew.

Looking back on my life, how many times have I seen a path that I thought was "right" and it really was the way of death. We should be so careful to seek the will of the Lord in our lives and to seek the wise counsel of other Christians the Lord has placed in our lives. We will then save ourselves much time and sorrow from "ripping out" the mistakes and resewing the pieces.


"Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil." Proverbs 3:5-7