Why -- Indeed?

About three years ago, a group of us started getting together one night a month to do some handsewing together. We do a fair amount of laughing, we sometimes burst into impromptu and off-key song, as well. We have treats at the end of the evening. We air our gripes, we indulge in mutual consolation, and we each month we learn a little more sign language from our member Helen who teaches at the deaf school. We seldom retain the signs until the next month, but we tell ourselves we're a handsewing group, not a language study group.
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This past May, I think it was, some of us brought in some PIGS (Projects in Grocery Sacks, for the uninitiated). Without revealing the contents, each participant received a sack other than her own, with the task of making something our of the contents by the November meeting. Didn't have to be a finished quilt. A top would be fine. A wall hanging would be splendid.
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Bonnie opened hers first. She was dismayed -- her PIGS was a collection of swastika blocks in patriotic tones. Emily wasn't much happier -- she received some heart blocks that didn't seem to with each other, let along anything else. Helen got my PIGS -- it was three batik turtle blocks left over from a quilt I'd made my friend Martha, along with odds and ends of coordinating batiks. I was the luckiest -- the PIGS I opened contained four very cute long-legged chicken blocks and a bunch of yellow and white pinwheels.
. . . .
For once I'm finished ahead of the deadline. I pondered my blocks for quite a while and then reached for some nice black mottle, some border fabrics, and some embroidery floss. It seemed I'd been given the makings for a illustrative answer to the age old question.
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