That afternoon, Ginny wandered around
her house thinking this whole thing over. Such a big decision she was trying
to make. Finally Ginny gave a nod of decision to her teddy bear. She ran
down the stairs, rounded the corner and flew into her mom's quilt room.
"Mom! I know what kind of quilt I want now!"
Her mother smiled, "Good. Did you
pick the fabric out of my stash already?"
"No, you don't have the stuff I need.
Can we go to the stash store?"
Her mother giggled, "You mean the
fabric store? And yes, we can go. I wanted to check out the new fat quarters
anyway." Almost before her mother could finish her sentence, Ginny ran
out to the car and impatiently waited for her mom. "Mom! Let's go! Come
on!" Finally, after mom had gathered up her purse, swatches, and checkbook,
they were in the car and on their way.
Finally, their at the store. "Okay
Ginny, what are you looking for? What color?"
"No it's not a color. I'll know it
when I see it." Then she spotted the children's fabric section, and darted
over to it. She immediately began rummaging through the prints. After viewing
every bolt of fabric in that section, Ginny was quite frustrated, and went
to meet her mom in the quilt section.
Her mother looked down at her, and
saw tears welling up in her eyes. "What is it honey? What's the matter?"
"They don't have what I need" she
sniffled.
"Well, did you look in the sale section?"
"Mom, you know I hate the cheap stuff."
"Ginny, it's not 'cheap' stuff, it's
usually just older. When they get new fabric, they have to make room for
it. So the sell the older stuff for a cheaper price."
So, Ginny and her mom went to the
sale area. Ginny began going through the fabrics, suddenly she squealed,
"This it it!! This is what I need mom!"
Her mom examined the fabric Ginny
was tugging at. A dark midnight blue, with tiny golden kittens all over
it. "Well, that's cute! All those little kitties. Now, you'll need some
other fabric to go with it."
"Uhmm...okay. How about blue and gold?
Just like this fabric??"
"Okay. Here let's take the bolt over
to the solids section, and I'll grab some that match."
Now that they had all the fabric, a
pattern had to be picked. Ginny, after thumbing through quilt magazine,
after quilt magazine, decided on the barn door pattern. And so, Ginny was
left to wait impatiently for the finished quilt.
Finally, a week later, Ginny came
home from school one day and took her book bag up to her room. When she
walked through her bedroom door, the first thing she noticed was the quilt
on her bed. She shrilled, "Mom!! It's so pretty!!"
That night, she couldn't wait to go
to bed. Her mother had to keep telling her that she had to wait till bedtime
to go to bed. Finally, mom told her it was bedtime. Ginny immediately went
up to her room, put on her jammies, and snuggled up under her new quilt
and drifted off to sleep.
Ginny's eyes popped open the next
morning, and she jumped out of bed. First she looked under her bed. Then
her hamper, her closet and on a chance in her dresser drawers. She collapsed
into tears and curled up on her bed. Her mother heard her crying and came
into her room, "Honey, are you okay? What's the matter?" She hugged Ginny
close.
Sniffling, Ginny stammered, "It..it..it
didn't work!"
"What didn't work dear?"
"The quilt, gramma said the animals
would come to life. But it didn't work."
Her mother kissed her forehead, "I'll
be right back sweety." She went downstairs to call Ginny's gramma. After
hearing the whole account of Ginny and her grandma's conversation, she
realized what the problem was, and went back up to Ginny's room.
"Sweety, it's okay. I'll tell you
what. Why don't you try the quilt one more time? I'll bet it will work
then."
Ginny looked up, "You...you think
so?"
Her mother nodded, "Yeah!! I do think
so!"
"Well...okay..."
Ginny spent the rest of the day anxiously
playing and waiting. When her mom went to town, but wouldn't let her come
too, she got quite upset. Then her dad offered to take her swimming instead.
Most likely to wear her out!
That night, Ginny crawled under the
quilt, still excited, but not as much as the first night. She whispered
to the quilt, "You better work this time!" and drifted off to sleep again.
Ginny's mom got up very early the
next morning, snuck quietly into Ginny's room, with a little bundle, and
placed it at the end of the bed. As she left, she called out Ginny's name
a few times, loudly enough to wake her up, then quickly slipped out of
the room, before Ginny saw her.
Ginny rubbed her eyes, and sat up.
She saw something wiggling at the end of the bed, her eyes almost popped
out of her head! She reached down and picked up the wriggling little bundle
and opened it. For a moment, all she could do was just stare at the tiny
golden kitten.
"MOM! MOM! It worked! It worked!"
Her mother came in, and saw Ginny
grinning from ear to ear, and she couldn't help but smile too. Ginny looked
up at her and said, "Gosh mom...I just had a great idea!"
"What's that?"
"You're going to have to make me a
quilt with Santa on it!" and with that, her mom started to laughing, and
thinking to herself, 'Now how am I going to pull this one off?"
Questions? Comments? Ideas? Write to me!
Be sure to put "NICHE"
in the subject line.