I need new friends.

Ones who don’t make me cry in the kitchen at 10pm at night when everyone else is in bed. It’s kind of a long story.

When Beetle was born, the lovely Miss AJ was clearing out some baby clothes, and offered me a big parcel of baby boys stuff. And by full, I mean the post bag was bursting at the seams, literally. There was a little something stuffed in one of the shoes, so I’d ripped open the bag, grabbed that out, then left it on the change table until I had time to sort it all out. A few days later, she’d found another cute pair of shoes she’d forgotten to include. A couple of days after that, she was disposing of cloth nappies and I very cheekily hit her up for an Itti Bitti. So when a card appeared in my mailbox saying the Beetle had another parcel to collect, I figured it was from AJ. The first attempt at a post office run was a disaster – the line was out the door, and Beetle was starting to cry for a feed, so we turned tail and went home. That afternoon we tried again – success! I got a parcel posted, and paid for…and at the last minute remembered the card was still in my bag and I needed to collect a parcel. Parcel in hand, it was from AJ, and though it was larger than it should have been, I didn’t really think too much of it – and had I have done, I would have expected it to be more clothes. I chucked the parcel on the front seat, strapped in the children and collected Bear from school. Juggling bags and babies and toddlers on our arrival home, I left it there, mentally filing it under “things to deal with later”. It was also around this point I flicked AJ a message, asking if I could give her some money for postage, thinking two rather large bags of clothes would have been quite expensive to post – she’s too polite to say, but I’m pretty sure at this point she was killing herself laughing.

Once the children were in bed, Mr Dove grabbed some bits and pieces out of the car ready to wrap presents for Miss Butterfly’s birthday the next day, and very kindly grabbed the parcel. “What’s with the parcel?” “Oh, just some more clothes from AJ. I’ll pop it on the change table with the other lot once I’ve finished cleaning the kitchen”. So I pottered about and he wrapped the presents and headed off to bed as I finished up my chores. My delightfully tidy children had left socks and jumpers on the floor, and after picking them up, figured if I was doing a laundry run anyway, I may as well open the bag and take those clothes as well.

And this, dear readers, is where the wheels came off. It wasn’t clothes. The shoes were there, granted. And the nappies. But my jaw dropped when I saw what the bulk of the parcel actually was.

And this was about the point I lost it. It was 10 o’clock at night. The house was dark and silent. And there was this beautiful quilt laying on the floor in front of me. So many sweet ladies gave up their valuable time to make this for me, for my boy. I honestly have no words to describe how touched I am. All of them have families. A good portion also work outside the home. And they’d taken time out from that, from their own precious, limited craft time, to make something for no reason other than to celebrate my baby. I know what it can be like when the time even a single block can seem too much, and yet so many of them did anyway. A lot of these ladies I’ve never met in person, and aren’t likely to any time soon. There are blocks from all around the country, and from England (hi Esther!).

My second jaw-dropping moment was when AJ added me to their planning group on Facebook, and I learnt they had been working on this since March. MARCH. They did a good job of keeping it secret – helps that I’m pretty oblivious. Car mentioned at one point she was sewing, so of course I ask what she was making. “Just some blocks” she replies, and gullible ol’ me just shrugs and accepts the vague answer without thinking much about it. The last couple of weeks as we chat, I ask AJ what she’s been up to – “oh not, much, just cleaning my sewing room”. I think it says a lot about a)the state my studio gets in at times and b)my world class procrastination abilities that I thought absolutely nothing of it taking her two weeks to tidy it up! I have been told that in fact there was very little cleaning and much furious binding stitching going on.

I feel like I can’t say it enough. Thank you so much dear girls. You have no idea how moved I am that you would all put in such an effort for me. I adore the quilt, and I love you all to bits. Thank you. *mwah*

(blocks by Car, Joy, Shirley, Milly, Emma, Mands, Carmel, Kirsty, Rebecca, Nic, Alley Cat, Sibylle, Helen, Esther, Caz, Kylie & AJ the mastermind)