Good Deeds and Worms

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Cognitive dissonance

This is the feeling of uncomfortable tension, which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time and it happens to me all the time.  I know what’s right, then I do what’s wrong.  I say one thing, and do another.  I get on a soapbox, and then sneak off the back side when I think no one is looking.  But that’s not what happened this time.  There was no discomfort at all, not even the usual intestinal disorders or voices in my head.

Remember how I said I believed it was good to learn to be simply grateful without needing to pay back?   Well, I simply HAD to give something back to Hope Lodge because I wanted to.

On a weekend home during Paul’s treatment, I dug through my piles of small quilts and came up with several to offer for the corridors of Hope Lodge.  To my surprise, they wanted every single one I brought!  Jammie and Sarah spent a happy hour deciding where to hang them and I took them all home to attach hanging sleeves and make hanging boards.

Delivered a week ago, 14 quilts:

Eleven

Three more

Zipper inspects the hanging devices

Jammie, Nancy, and Sarah with their favorites, respectively

Worms

I’ve been around long enough and done this often enough to begin to see a pattern:  A great idea pops into my head and starts worming around in there until it comes out, by way of my mouth, as a PLAN.  By the time it reaches the ears of others, the idea has become a larger-than-life PLAN, infused with a hidden dream element.  That dream element is part of the problem.  Maybe the line between facts and dreams can be somewhat blurry in my mind when I’m excited?  Or bored?  Or perhaps it’s happening a lot.  You tell me.

Where do worms/ideas come from?  For me, it involves some sort of input… it doesn’t happen in a vacuum.  In my defense, most of my ideas start out innocently enough.  I see a problem, a need, or an opportunity and the worm start to squirm. 

In my group of friends (we fondly call each other “besties”) we have a saying: “I have an idea…”  This usually means the speaker is about to suggest something dumb, poorly thought-out, immoral, or all three.

I get it wrong

My idea for Hope Lodge was only guilty of one of the three above elements:  poorly thought out, owing to insufficient data input.  Not sure who gets the blame for the skimpy input, but it’s possible that, once the worm is turning, the input channel gets clogged with worm castings.

Data input:  each of the 60 guest rooms at Hope Lodge has a big comfy recliner.  You might imagine that a guest who’s pretty sick would spend a lot of time that recliner.  Hope Lodge keeps a protective cover on the headrest, something that can be laundered after each guest checks out.   Oops!  That didn’t sound right in this context.  How about “returns home”?

This is the chair and coverlet that was in Paul’s room:

You can see that this thing is very launderable if not cozy.  It turns out that “launderable” is not a real word.  Nor is “laundrable”, but I’ll bet you understand it anyway.

The idea:  Since the folks at Hope Lodge were so excited about the wallhanging quilts I was offering them, I figured they’d love the offer of some new chair coverlets in updated colors and style.  And they did. 

So I went home and started making little quilts for the chairs.  Then I got grandiose and started selling the idea/worm to friends and they started making little quilts.

With the delivery of the 14 wall-hanging quilts above, I carried 17, yes seventeen, chair quilts to Hope Lodge.  And that’s when I learned that half of the 60 recliners are leather and, aside from using a staple gun to keep them in place, they weren’t going to stay in place.  See?  Insufficient data due to premature input channel closure.

But look how nice they look anyway:

Mary's quilt

Fixing it

Velcro is out, and so are safely pins.  I wonder if I can do something with elastic?  When it comes to finding a solution that doesn’t make the whole business look tacky, I’m stumped

If you have any suggestions for a remedy of the problem, something that can be used on either leather or upholstered chairs so the quilts are interchangeable, please share them with me in the comments section.

Detail of Lori's contribution.  3-D!!!

One of mine

Nancy