cutting tulle (tool?)

My job yesterday was to cut tulle into squares. This is for the wedding. We are putting these squares of shimmering-with-gold, creamy-colored tulle under the centerpiece bowls of white roses in floral gel.

Cutting tulle is the physics! Lucky thing Sonia sent me quite a lot of it as some got wrecked.

First I made a couple of 18-inch squares of tissue paper, thinking I would pin them on the fabric and cut out as one does with any pattern. But this didn’t work well. You really need to keep an eye on the scissors and the cloth as you’re cutting, because the edge of these (which will remain unfinished) needs to be even. Invariably with this method the edges were full of scissor nicks.

My next method was to pin the tissue on the fabric, mark each corner with a dot, then remove the pattern piece and draw cutting lines directly on the cloth, connecting the dots using a metal meter stick. It should have worked perfectly. But that pesky tulle kept shifting. If I lifted my ruler even ever so slightly in order to press down on a further-along spot, the line underneath turned out squiggly.

All in all, though, using this method, I thought I was doing pretty well – until it came time to iron. Because the fabric is super-fragile, I ironed it between a couple of tea towels. It just so happened the bottom towel had squares on it. Placing my squares on the tea towel squares was the moment of truth. How my ‘squares’ became so unsquare I have no idea. Suffice it to say, I spent another several hours, pinning square after square onto the tea towel to trim and even the edges.

And while I was doing this, I thought of my life, of how easy it is to become self-congratulatory and think I’m looking pretty square – until I measure myself against the standard of God’s Word.

On Sunday morning, one of our pastor’s wives spoke in church. She talked about the preeminence of love, taking us through parts of I Corinthians 13. Now there’s the square tea towel!

Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy; is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.

It is not conceited – arrogant and inflated with pride; it is not rude (unmannerly), and does not act unbecomingly.

Love [God’s love in us] does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it– pays no attention to a suffered wrong.

It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.

Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances and it endures everything [without weakening]. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 Amplified

Thank you, God, for Your word – which is a standard and a cutting tool at the same time. May I be trimmed by it every day.