"I'm not talking about our age difference. I'm just making a general observation about the self-perceived invincibility of youth."

"Good, because frankly, we're all getting a little tired of your constant harping about it."

"I don't harp."

Aunt Beth rolled her eyes. “You ready to head out?"

"Let me get my bag and sweater,” Harriet said.

Beth followed her into the studio then out to the driveway, where they got into Beth's silver Beetle and made the short drive to Pins and Needles.

"Hi, Carla,” Harriet said as she came into the quilt store. Carla Salter was the youngest member of the Loose Threads and worked part-time at Pins and Needles. She no longer needed the extra income since Aiden Jalbert had hired her as his fulltime housekeeper, but clerking at the store allowed her to get out. Her toddler Wendy enjoyed going to the drop-in day care at the Methodist church, too, so it worked well for all concerned.

"Did you guys make any progress on the dog quilt yesterday?” Carla asked. She had missed the meeting because of Wendy's well baby checkup.

"Our quilt blocks didn't go very well together, and then Lauren arrived, and she had just seen the quilt the Small Stitches were working on, and it was our idea, only better. They used coordinated fabrics instead of going scrappy, like we did. I guess they did similar dog faces, too."

"That's sort of weird,” Carla said as she folded the half-yard piece of fabric she'd just cut.

"That's what I said, but Lauren pointed out there are only a few specifically dog-related images, and dog faces are probably on everybody's short list."

"I guess."

"That's why we're meeting again today. We're shelving our dog-face blocks and trying to come up with another plan. Will you be able to help us?"

"Yeah, Marjory said I could take a break for the meeting, but I'm just making half-yard cuts of the new Jo Morton fabric that came in. If no one cares, I thought I could move my cutting mat into the meeting room and keep working while we talk."