Well, I hope no one has been thinking that I was heartless in sending my mother-in-laws quilt to the garage. She herself recognizes that it was very bad and has mentioned several times that she really did not know how to make quilts, and she was so excited that we were going to work on a quilt with her during our visit. The next time we visit with her, I will have completely cut out all of the fabric for the squares so our time will be spent in getting the top sewn together. I will probably take my machine and my granddaughter's machine so the three of us can all be sewing. She really was so happy for us to be helping/teaching her. Other family members have always made remarks about how bad her work has been, but this was the first time anyone has shown her a few "tricks" in getting seems press and in which direction to press those seams. This can be attributed to my granddaughter who is very precise in the construction of a quilt square and because of her autism has such an innocent way of conveying her instructions. Also, when some seam does not turn out just right she is very patient in saying such things as, "It takes practice", "It's just a mistake, we can fix it.", "Let me show you what to do" Through out the years my mother-in-law and I have been able to work together on many "sensitive" situations. When her youngest daughter at the age of 18 lost her husband (much older) in a drowning accident and was left with her new baby and two pre-teen step-children, it was my husband, my mother-in-law, and me who went to these children's biological grandparents (it was their son who drown) and worked out the future care for these two children. When my mother-in-law had hip replacement and her body rejected the "hardware", it was me who got up at 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. and drove to her house to give her pain medication injections. Then it was me who got that doctor on the phone and demanded that he see her in the emergency room, and it was me (with two small children of my own) who helped her get kitchen cabinets built to accomodate her use of a wheel chair in the kitchen. I guess all of this is to say that the two of us have a relationship in which we could tell each other that our work was "bad", but more than likely we would be able to offer a resolution to "fix" the problem. You know that quilt in the garage really does have value to us when it prevents Aunt Mary's fig tree from frost.