A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, in a log cabin deep in the woods, lived a little girl with her brother, mother, and father.  Most evenings the mother's knitting needles went click, click, click as she turned skeins of wool into beautiful sweaters for her family.  Many days the sewing machine whirred while the mother made clothes and other things for her family. 

And the mother gave yarn and needles to the little girl, but the little girl would not learn how to knit.  The mother filled a round metal sewing box with needles, thread, and other things.  She brought the little girl into town, to the big white church with the tall steeple (the kind of steeple all churches ought to have).  There, many girls learned to sew from a kind lady, but the little girl didn't like to sew. 

What was the mother to do?

 By and by, the little girl grew and went away to college.  But she did not learn to knit, and she did not learn to sew.  At college, she met Prince Charming, and they married soon after graduation.  In all the boxes she brought with her to her new home was the round sewing box full of pins and things.

 Not long after, the girl (we can't call her little anymore, can we?) received a special gift from her mother and father.  It was a sewing machine.  What would she do with a sewing machine?  Prince Charming thought she could now do all the mending (hehehe). 

Now, the girl's mother and aunts had learned to quilt.  So the girl learned to quilt from them.  And she took the pins her mother gave her so long ago out of the round tin, and used them for all of her piecing.  (She still didn't do any mending) 

Then one day, she sewed her first curved seam, a Grandmother's Fan, but it came out all puckered.  What was she to do?  With help from some very nice people, and a Quilting Fairy, she tried again. Much better!  But, she didn't use her old pins this time.  Her old pins were short and stubby, and had nearly no head at all.  They got lost in the seams of the Grandmother's Fan.  The new pins she used were long, with great big heads.  What would she do with her short stubby pins now?  She still has them, of course.

Now the girl makes quilts and things for her three sons, and Prince Charming too.  And they live happily in the woods (but she still doesn't knit).