The other night, we had a storm warning coming in. After our near-miss with the tornado, I’ve been diligent — cushions off the deck and inside, plants moved to the floor so they won’t blow over, all the usual prep. I finally sat down to work on the couch. Rigby was asleep beside me. Fergus was happily snoring on the floor.
And then I felt something cool land on my foot.
I looked down — a toad, or maybe a tree frog. Both are seen regularly outside the house. I couldn’t move. Rigby’s a huntress, and one wrong shift and she’d be up and after it in an instant — so I sat there, frozen, while I could feel his little heart beating against my foot, terrified. I called Searah, my assistant — and genuinely amazing friend — at 11pm, and she came right over. She crated the dogs, and only once Rigby was safely behind bars did I dare move.
This wasn’t my first indoor toad, by the way. Back when the kids were little, we had several make their way inside over the years — enough that I’ve always called wherever I’m living “Toad Hallow.” Apparently the tradition is alive and well.
That’s the thing about being prepared — you can plan for the storm, secure the cushions, protect the plants, and still get blindsided by something you never saw coming. In quilting, I’ve learned the same lesson the hard way. You can prewash your fabric, press every seam, double-check your measurements — and something still goes sideways. A block gets turned around. A y-seam doesn’t want to behave. The bobbin runs out at the worst possible moment. A thread breaks. The longarm skips stitches.
And just like that night with the toad, sometimes the smartest thing you can do is call in help before it becomes a bigger problem. I couldn’t catch that toad alone without also unleashing a very determined huntress of a dog — so I called Searah, and together we solved it calmly instead of chasing chaos around my living room at 11pm.
The same goes for a tricky block or a stubborn technique. You don’t have to work through it alone. Call a quilting friend, ask in your guild, post in a group. Sometimes two sets of hands — and a little bit of laughing at the absurdity of it all — makes all the difference.
Welcome to Toad Hallow. Population: us, two Newfoundlands, and whatever wanders in next.
