Somebody at church handed me a grocery bag last Sunday. Turned out it was her mama's housedresses, all them little florals from the sixties, some still with the buttons on. She said she couldn't bear to toss them and didn't know who'd want them. I told her I'd take them home and see.

I sat with them on the kitchen table a good long while before I touched the scissors. That's the thing people don't understand about cutting up somebody's clothes. You got to ask permission first, even if they can't hear you.

Now I got the pieces laid out on my cutting mat, and that old polyester and cotton is telling me exactly where it wants to go. That rose pattern is going to be the center of a star block, I can feel it. The Lord works in strange ways, honey. That woman's got no idea her mama's dresses are about to live fifty more years in a quilt on my wall.