Quilting with Cameo

Sister Johnson gave an awesome lesson today in Relief Society.  She had a bunch of hand pieced quilts as her display and lucky for me, Sister Gunnell typed up the synopsis of the class and emailed it out to everyone so she said I could just copy an paste it here on my blog.  Very good lesson!

Cameo displayed six quilts and an old ironing board... She also passed out little baggies with quilted pieces and seam rippers for sisters to unpick some quilted squares while she taught the lesson.

She began the lesson by sharing and explaining a star quilt she began some 15 years ago, but lost track of somewhere in a box over time and several moves. She found that quilt recently and continued where she had left off those many years ago. Then she taught us some of the things she thought about as she quilted... I will not do her lesson justice, but do want to at least share some of the points I remember.

In no particular order I will recall what I can from Cameo's fantastic lesson...

Our lives are like a quilt... they take time and are detailed and we make mistakes along the way. The squares need to be put together correctly or the quilt will not work. She held up many attempted squares throughout her lesson that represented different things like the two cute little ones she tried to do by memory without the directions. She said they were cute, but wrong. As much as she tried to remember she really needed the directions and once she found those directions she was able to recall the correct way to place and sew them. Just like we need the scriptures. We need to read not just go on our memories.

When we do make mistakes we can unpick the stitches with a seam ripper, just like when we sin we can repent. Those seam rippers are a quilter's best friend. Repentance too is a very important part of the plan.

She held up what appeared to be a perfect square, but said it was very wrong and was not going in the quilt. To our eyes it looked fine, but she knew it was wrong. Like our lives, often only we know what we are doing is wrong, but no one else knows.

Cameo showed us a quilt she started for Carly when she was just a little girl... Yet another quilt that took way longer than she had hoped, it too landed in a box and was finished years later when she finally added the binding (the only part left to finish). Carly had picked the colors as a child, but by the time Cameo finished it ~ Carly wasn't interested anymore. Let's not do the same in our lives and take too long on any given thing of importance.
Another quilt was one she and her daughter Anne worked on together for Carly. This one went much faster and like in life they got to work together to accomplish a great thing. Also, she realized while making that quilt that the pleated squares needed a stabilizing backing in order to work properly in the quilt. Sometimes we need that extra support as well.

She showed us a purple quilt that she finished in a timely manner and they were able to enjoy for many years. Unlike the others where she got distracted and was not able to enjoy.
Her sewing machine is very important to her because it is the tool she uses to sew her quilts, but if she isn't careful it fills up with lint and/or needs to be maintained, the lint cleaned out, oiled. She even needs to listen for the bobbin or it runs out of thread and she needs to redo her work. How many times do our lives fill up with lint and we need to clean it out. Like the bobbin, we need to maintain the often unseen spiritual parts of our lives. We need to listen so we can hear the spirit and not have to back track.

She loves her old sturdy ironing board she got from her grandmother. It survived the Mt. Pleasant flood! Covered with mud it was cleaned by her grandmother and to this day helps Cameo make her quilts.

An very old quilt that was entirely hand quilted and belonged to Mike's family compared to another old hand quilted one picked up at a antique shop. Each very similar, but so very different. One handed down and remembered by family... one given up and forgotten by the quilter's family...

She talked about needing to find someone you can trust to machine quilt something you put so much time and effort into. You don't want to just hand it off to anyone. We too need to trust in the Savior to help us finish our lives properly.

Cameo covered so many things in so many analogies... Scriptures, Repentance, Geneology, Temple Work, Self Worth, Not Judging, and of course our Savior, the list goes on.

Oh, and those squares the sisters helped unpick at during the lesson? Those were squares Cameo had done incorrectly and needed to redo, but because she had help she will be able to move on with that quilt and get it done.

All the quilts were made up of completely different colors. All the colors were beautiful as they were grouped together in a single quilt, but some of the colors would not have worked very well in another quilt because the colors would have clashed.

Analogy: There is a time and place for everything we do in our lives. We shouldn't run faster than we have strength or take on more than we can handle at one time. It's okay to say "no" sometimes.

All the quilts were different. If I tried to make another one just exactly as I done another one, I would not be able to duplicate it. It would actually be quite boring to try to do another quilt exactly the same way and with the same colors as previously done.

Analogy: We are all different. We can't be duplicated because we are so unique. That is the way God planned it. So, we should not compare ourselves to others because there is no comparison. We each have our own important mission to fulfill in this life, so be yourself!


I am sure each woman in that room got something personal out of that lesson. I know I did. I am sure Cameo is way too busy to share it again, but if anyone else remembers anything I didn't mention, please share.

Each week we get to hear a great lesson prepared by a sister who put much time, thought and prayer into the message.