Friends

Nearly ten years ago I went to Patches in Brisbane to do a Double Wedding Ring quilt class with Pam Hill...I'm still working on that quilt...I don't remember if I put into my NYRs that I want to finish that quilt this year, but it's there, at the back of my mind.

At that class I met some women who suggested that we meet up after we'd finished doing the class to see how each of us was going and to help each other to get our quilts finished. We duly started meeting up, and now, all this time later, we still meet up. After Christmas it has been weekly, as it has been school holidays and other commitments haven't been there. But it will revert to twice monthly from now on. We all got together yesterday, well most of us got together yesterday. One of us was recovering from having had a houseful of guests for some weeks, another two of us were away at various beach venues - huge envy in this heat!

We always laugh, sometimes we cry, but most of all, what the women in this group do is support each other. I have been the most absent of the group, having been overseas a lot when my husband was working away from Australia, and still away a bit as he now works in Melbourne, and like last week, I take opportunities to go there where I can - but it was a real toss-up last week...go to Melbourne and see DH, my darling DIL, and the Dickens quilt and also try to meet up with a scquilter friend, or stay in Brisbane, because that was our group sewing day and those days mean so much to me.

I don't know if the other women in the group know it, but they mean as much to me as my family does. They are there with a caring shoulder when any of us needs it, they are there with advice for both sewing and life problems, they cook great cakes and biscuits, they are fun and witty, they are adventurous. They are all intelligent and they have given me great lessons in commitment over the years. Commitment to their families, to each other, to projects, to helping others.

I don't know that my life would be so very different without them, but it would be so very, very much poorer without them.