Blast from the Past: A Dedication

Once upon a time when I quilted, I learned the art of the handmade dedication. My friend, my niece, My SIL, and my Son all got handstitched dedications on the back of their quilts. It was time consuming, but I really felt it added a nice, personal touch to the gift.

It's been literally years since I did a hand-stitched dedication (the last one I did for my son took me months), but this spring, we found out our pastor of 8 years was leaving for a different church. And I had a choice: I could let it go without comment, or I could put my skills to use on a handmade gift.

You can guess which way I went :-) Someone else had already put in the work to order a beautiful stole off Etsy, but it was bought and paid for by a small subset of our church - those of us who are LGBT friendly, and supportive of the progressive mission of the church our pastor is going to. I wanted her to remember and (others to see!) that this wasn't just a parting gift: she had our backing for her new mission.

I got seriously cross-eyed trying to sew this in less than two weeks - the same two weeks, I might add, where our fridge died and our kids switched daycares and everything as that could go wrong DID go wrong, but it was worth it.

It's easy to get lost in the day to day, sometimes, but the gift of a handstitched dedication has some staying power. I'll miss our old pastor, but I'm glad I got to hand stitch some love for her before she went.