When life gives you a needle and thread… make a quilt?

I sighed and crossed that out. English class was impossible. How was I supposed to make new clichés?

I leaned back in my chair, trying to make my mind open to ideas. Cheer of happiness? Maybe. It was a lot like sigh of relief.

My mind went back to the thread and needle as my eyes wandered to my shoebox of crafts. In there was all my sewing supplies, knitting needles. The dusty cover was self-explanatory-its neglect started in middle school. I often wistfully glanced at it. Sewing and knitting involved the same processes over and over, making it calming, although it still required concentration for accuracy.

At least in sixth grade, I still did some sewing. At school, we had made pillows with sewing machine. (Of course, I barely remember anything now about using that thing.) I still had scraps of fabric that we used to make mini pillows before making the real thing.

I glanced over my two shoulders. Both of my parents were busy on their computers. Hopefully they wouldn’t notice me straying from my homework for a bit.

I took out the shoebox and rummaged through a bit. My left hand revealed pillow with skulls dotting all over its orange base color. I scrunched my nose at it as in my right hand, I pulled out my handy-dandy sewing kit and two pieces of pastel-striped pieces of fleece.

Taking out my scissors, I cut the orange pirate pillow open to reveal its stuffing. I then pinned the two pieces of fleece together. After threading my needle, I quickly started stitching the outline of the two pieces.

Have you ever hand-sewn with pins? Trust me, not pretty. Probably because I wasn’t using the pins right way anyway.

Anyway, I managed to sew most of the outline, flip the pillow right-side out, stuff it, then sew up the opening in twenty minutes.

NEW RECORD! Okay, my first record, but still.

And this was under parent radar, where if I was caught, the reprimand is “WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? You’re sewing? Finish your homework first!”

With a secret smile, I placed the pillow aside and grabbed my pink post it notes.

“You looked really tired yesterday,” I wrote out in my graceful swirls, smirking. I could already imagine the look on his face when he read that. “So, I made you a pillow!”

I twirled my pencil after awhile as I stared at the note. Yeah, I’m boss like that, twirling my pencil. No seriously, I only learned in eight grade after I spent the last three weeks of summer staring at my roommate at summer camp with envy while she spun hers. And yes, it took my three months before I stopped throwing my pencil across the room only after three tries. My current record is 25, btw. And I’m not trying to beat it yet.

Yes, I have a life.

To tell you the truth, that English homework was really calling me to get back to work, and I was really tired on coming up with new ideas as this secret admirer thingymajig. Sure, it’s fun, and it makes me giggle with evil genius coming out of my ears, but it’s tiring too.

Not to mention, Elizabeth was really gone on my case about it.

“So has he said anything to you about it?”

“Not yet.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You do realize this is going nowhere, right?”

“I know.” I bit into my bagel.

“If I were you, I would drop him by now, but I’m not telling you what to do…”

I sighed. She was probably right. And I really needed her to get off my case.

At least my other friends didn’t mind. And Kyra was the actual true hopeless romantic, no matter what Elizabeth says.

I went back to the post-it note. “This is going to be my last note. <^-^3”

I stuck the post-it onto the pillow and gave a sigh of relief.

There. Done.

End to the secret admirer game.