I pieced table toppers for my friend Becky in Utah in December 2010.  If you remember, I was diagnosed with MS the last week of December 2010 – and our ‘normal’ world changed to a ‘new normal’ at that time.  Nothing has ever ‘leveled out’ for me since then, as the MS symptoms have progressively gotten worse.  I am currently between MS therapies and will start a new one soon.

Anyway, the table toppers were promised to Becky for her spring tables where she sells her goat’s milk soap.  She has some wonderful displays at various venues for her lovely products.  I believe I had made some autumn table toppers the year (2009) before, for her fall display tables.

Once I was diagnosed, I had a couple of years to try to deal with not only having MS but also to figure out my ‘place’ in our family.  My husband and I had made a pretty good bargain when we had kids – he would handle all mornings and I would handle the evenings.  In the past year, he has had to take on more and more of my evening responsibilities because I was either in the bed and in pain or I was on medication that meant I couldn’t drive.  He is definitely burning his candle at both ends and I haven’t been able to stick to my end of the bargain.

While my foster mother wintered with us earlier this year, we were looking through my stash piles for blocks for her to practice quilting on and I ran across the three table toppers I had made for Becky.  I was terribly ashamed that I hadn’t been able to get them done before but made it my new mission, to get those things done as they aren’t just spring colors but summer colors, too – and although my MS was not under any kind of control, finishing these up was my new ASAP WIP.

So, I set my mind to getting them finished!  I started preparing my MS body by relaxing as much as possible after my nap.  If I could get my legs and feet to stop spazzing and burning, through various relaxation techniques – I was one step closer to being able to get them done.  After a week, I believed I had conquered the relaxation.  Next was my reaction to stress, which usually shows itself in all sorts of painful MS symptoms.  Again, relaxation techniques helped that symptom immensely.  Finally I had to work on the daily dizziness.  My doctor told me to get some motion sickness pills to see if that helped.  Of course, it didn’t help, but it did give me some other ideas on how to try to stop the dizziness such as not getting overheated, resting well in the right temps, etc.

FINALLY, I did it!  I went a week with very few breakthrough symptoms!  Now it was time to tackle Becky’s table toppers.

During my week of dealing with the new me, I found out a very dear and precious (local) friend was having a medical crisis of her own – and needed a whole lot of prayers, praise and thanksgiving to fight her medical battle.  Every time I saw or heard her name, I sent up yet another prayer.  But, I felt I needed to envelope her in prayer more than I was doing.  Hence, the two projects (table toppers for Becky and prayers for my friend), morphed into one project.  And that original Karate Kid movie was my driving force in handling both projects.

Wax on, Wax off, Wax on, Wax off.

Stitch in and pray, stitch out and pray, stitch in and pray, stitch out and pray.

If you haven’t guessed it by now, I’ll make it easy on you – I was whip-stitching the binding to the table toppers and with each stitch in that I made, I prayed for my friend.  Each time the needle from my hand went through the fabric, I prayed for my friend.

Stitch in and pray, stitch out and pray.

Here are the three table toppers that I’ve finished – definitely made with love and stitched with prayer:

The fabric was gifted to me by Linda at AbbiMays.com and it is fabric that was designed for spring release in 2011 by Sandy Gervais.

And now, I will just have to find another project to keep my hands busy and my prayers joined with many others for my dear friend!