When is the Love Cooked in?

I didn't sew yesterday.  I know it's a great travesty, but I was thinking about all of you anyway.  I wish you could smell the delicious chili I have in the crock pot.  I soaked the beans last night and started cooking before it was even bright this morning.  It's only 10 am and already the smell has my mouth watering.  It reminds me of a conversation I had with my daughter the other day while we were making dinner.

DD:  Mommy when do you add the love in?
Me:  ???
DD:  Everything is cooked with love so when do out the love in?

How would you answer that?  I think I told her I add it each time I add something and I add extra when I check on what I'm making.  But my answer doesn't hold a candle to her question.  I think the same applies to a quilt.  When do you sew the love in?  Is it when you're rethreading the machine for the thousandth time?  Or Perhaps when you add the label?  What about when your quilting it?  Or piecing it - perhaps dreaming of how you will quilt it?

For me I've been lucky enough to know the destiny of all the quilts I was giving away from the moment I started piecing the fabrics (sometimes sooner).  The love starts then.  Thinking about the person while cutting the fabric.  Selecting the proper thread and envisioning their face when you give them their quilt.  While piecing my quilts I feel most in touch with the fabrics involved.  It's then that I can see the quilting materialize as I work.  The hard quilts are the ones that wont talk.  :-)  Those get extra love in the form of the naughty words I call them in my head.  Oh you don't do that?  Of course.

May your quilts always have love sewn in.