As I embroider to enhance the flower petals of the quilt, I look up and around the room at the plants to give my eyes a little rest. I think about the remark Betty made when she visited us several weeks ago, that I must have a green thumb because the pothos and ferns grew so well.

My dad was the real gardener in the family, and my mother took care of the peonies and magic lilies and houseplants. I'm just keeping up what they started. And now the flowers that bloom in this January weather are the appliqued ones under my needle as I work rose colored thread along petal after petal on the cloth.

Sometimes I wish the quilt flowers were like the magic lilies my mother planted near the back door. Lush greens flourish in the spring and early summer, then shrivel away to nothing. And then, like their name implies, they spring up in August, lovely pink-toned blossoms nodding on their long stems.