Flat Alice has company

They were quite unexpected. Just showed up yesterday out of the cabinet when they heard through the sapling & vine network that Flat Alice is staying with my husband & I.

Her uncle Woodrow aka Woody, aunt Pulpina and cousin Pinete aka Piney are here from the land of paper envelopes. Their journey was long and arduous and fraught with many adventures. More than Flat Alice ever dreamed. Their trip to our home included a swift and dangerous trip down a very rushing river, stops in a lumber yard, paper mill, an envelope making factory (the gluing process was most uncomfortable) the office supply store and finally the cabinet where my dh works. Last night they regaled us with stories of their time in the office supply store. The one that had us laughing the hardest was the young couple protesting the envelope making process by snapping rubber bands at the store clerks. Thankfully the distance from which they were snapping rubber bands prevented anyone from getting hurt.

Uncle Woody shared the sweetest story of how they met. . .saplings living on the edge of a sweet meadow in Pennsylvania. At first Woody and Pulpina weren’t too fond of one another, as they grew they learned to appreciate one another’s beauty, even through the most awkward of middletree years. When they were harvested to make paper for envelopes they believed they’d never see one another again. Oh dear.

Then when they were packed into the same envelope box to be shipped off to some office supply mega store they fell in love all over again. (They were secretly hoping to elope to a small but friendly local office supply place. Their dreams were dashed when the the box they were in was misdirected to the mega store.)

Flat Alice and I have been working two challenge quilts. One is a paper piecing project and the other is my NY Beauty) She’s been great at helping me through this process. After making a quilt with me last week she’s become quite the knowledgeable quilter. Paper piecing is her specialty. She reminded me that paper piecing has a learning curve when you change the nature of the block. Since I tilted this block 45 degrees it took a bit of getting used to. Good catch Flat Alice.

Tomorrow, flat Alice will share the picture she took of Tom Thumb’s grave in Bridgeport CT.

Teri