She’s also out of sweaters. With no wool to work with, she and her sisters-in-law turned to quilting, making 54 quilts for CASA’s My Bag program.

The author's mother, Susan "Barrie" Peltz, wearing the boiled wool coat in the mid-1980s, New Hampshire. (Courtesy) Insert Marianne Hatton, a renowned quilter and one of my mother’s oldest friends.