Mrs. Thistlebloom Makes A Deal With Nell

It seemed like Nell had no more taken off her thin winter coat and hung it on the hook on the wall than there was a loud knock at the door. "Oh, surely it can't be my landlady. I don't have the rent money. All I have is a few coins in my little change purse for some food. Thank goodness I didn't have to pay for the ad in the newspaper, just the men have to pay the lady said. That was good because I didn't have the twenty-five cents that the men were charged. Oh, Mercy, I sure don't want to open the door." Then she heard her landlady's voice. "Open the door, young lady. I need to talk to you."

Nell slowly went to the door and Mrs. Thistlebloom huffed and puffed as she barged through the doorway and said, "Now then, I am going to do you a favor. I need to have you make a quilt as fast as you can. I need it for a friend of mine who is going to have a child in the next month or so. It has to be very special. If you do a good job I will let you live here for another month without making you move."

Nell couldn't believe her ears. "But, Mrs. Thistlebloom, I have no money to buy material to make the quilt. I'm so sorry. Are you really going to make me move out?"
Mrs. Thistlebloom's eyes narrowed as she thought. "I tell you what, Missy. I will provide the material, but it had better be the best baby gift that my friend and her husband receive. I have a reputation in this city to uphold as you well know. Now I will be back as soon as possible and I want you to start on it immediately. No excuses or you are out!"

When Grandma Lu stopped to sip her coffee she noticed some faces that looked like they had questions. "Yes, a quilt is like a blanket that you buy at the store, but is made differently and looks much different than a blanket. There is always a quilt on my easy chair in the Sitting Room, remember? I think Kathie, a niece of my husband's made that quilt. I love the colors in it."

"My grandmother made quilts out of old winter coats. When I was just a little girl my mama covered me up with those heavy quilts in the winter time. I could hardly move a muscle. My mother made quilts by stitching them by hand at first because she didn't have a sewing machine.  She would do her quilting at night with just a needle and thread while my father read to her. They were very beautiful.  I made quilts called crazy quilts. I made them out of scraps of material left over from my sewing. They were called crazy because they had no pattern or picture so to speak.
 My mother told me a story one time when I told her I was making a quilt. My father was a very quiet spoken man, but at times he was so funny. She said one day when they were first married he was watching her get her fabric ready to start a quilt. He watched her for awhile and said, "I just don't understand you. You buy material at the store and then you cut it all up and then you sew it back up again." Grandma Lu smiled and said, "My father's mother died at a young age and he never saw her make a quilt. And yes essentially that is what you do. You cut up perfectly good pieces of material and sew them together again and those pieces end up being not only a warm blanket, but beautiful as well. Many of them end up being a family keepsake called heirlooms. Well let's see what happens now with poor Nell."