Helen Kelley | loose threads

How
Sweet
It Is!

Birthdays should be special. They represent another year of loving, laughing, living, and lasting. Sometimes, over the years, I have been so involved with diapers and PTA and trips to doctors' offices that as I climbed into bed at night I've realized, "My goodness! It was my birthday, and I forgot it."

Not so this year. This year was a milestone birthday, and Bill announced that it should be celebrated properly. He made reservations for us at a gourmet restaurant that sits beside a lake in a small town nearby. I dressed up for the occasion–that means that I wore my lacy blue outfit that I save for quilt banquets"and we headed out into the soft, warm spring twilight to have our dinner.

At the restaurant, we were seated at a table with white linens and sparkling crystal and leather-covered menus. Of course, I had lobster; Bill always orders steak for special affairs. We ate leisurely as the twilight lengthened into evening, and I felt luxurious and overfed.

As the waitress carried away our dinner plates, Bill said, "You will have dessert, won't you?"

"Good heavens!" said I. "I am absolutely stuffed. I can't eat another bite."

"You will have dessert," said Bill. At that moment, the kitchen door opened and out came our waitress carrying a flaming birthday cake.

Helen Kelley is a quiltmaker, lecturer, author, and teacher from Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can visit Helen on the Internet at her website www.helenkelley- patchworks.com or email Helen at this address: helen@helenkelley- patchworks.com.

View our archive of Loose Threads columns.

This was not your ordinary kind of birthday cake. Bill had gone to an upscale grocery store and conferred with the bakery chef. He had taken along an enlarged picture of my flower shop quilt, which is my favorite. Somehow, the chef transferred a perfect image of my quilt onto a thin sheet of sugar. This piece of culinary art then went to the restaurant pastry chef, who built a remarkable cake around it. The cake had all the tiniest details, from the little flowers made of hearts, to the ivy climbing up the bricks outside the flower shop window, to the scalloped red-and-white striped canopy at the top. Across the cake, the chef had written "Flowers to Helen" and had trimmed the edges with fluted cream frosting. People came from around the room to see my cake. The diners and waiters oohed and aahed. I blew out the candles.

I couldn't bear to cut that cake. Instead I saved it. I took it on Wednesday to share with my favorite people, my Wednesday Quilters. That's what a birthday cake is for, to share with your favorite friends. I wish you could have been there with us–you would have loved it! Now, every crumb is gone and all that's left is the memory of the joyful sharing of this sweetest, most beautiful birthday surprise that ever was.

Check out this QN Web Extra to see Helen's birthday cake and the quilt that inspired it.

©HK 2007