Quilt As You Go Read Online Free Page B

couldn't spare just one minute to kiss her goodbye properly.
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Chapter 4
    Harriet was in her sunny yellow kitchen the next morning when someone knocked on the studio door. It was barely eight o'clock, and she wasn't expecting any customers.
    "Coming,” she called out and set her empty cereal bowl in the sink and ran a splash of water in it before going through the connecting door and unlocking the exterior door.
    "Hey, Chiquita,” Connie said as she came in. She held a garment bag in her left hand. “I have your costume ready to try on."
    Connie had volunteered to make Harriet's outfit since Harriet had no free time between making her own quilts and stitching everyone else's. After some discussion, they had agreed Harriet would quilt Connie's charity projects free of charge in exchange for the costume.
    "Oh, Connie, I completely forgot you were coming this morning.” Harriet put palm to forehead in a mock smack.
    "Is this a bad time?"
    "No, I was going to go check on Mavis, but that can wait."
    "This won't take long,” Connie said as she unzipped the bag and pulled out three hangers, each holding an element of the costume.
    "The bodice and skirt aren't connected. Since it's hot out, I decided to make two different bodices to go with the skirt so you can have one to wash and one to wear.” She had used simple cotton reproduction fabric in a pale brown that had a small light-blue flower in an all-over print. “Everything was in pieces in those days. Diós mio!” She pulled another hanger out of the garment bag. This one held a pale-blue apron. Clipped to the same hanger were three white cotton collars. “They didn't attach the collar to the shirt, so here are three of those. I was making one for each bodice, but they were so easy to do, I made you a spare."
    "They wore all this stuff every day?"
    "This is a simple outfit,” Connie said. “The fancy outfits were much more complicated, with extra petticoats, under-sleeves and cuffs."
    "I could make a lap-sized quilt with the fabric in this skirt,” Harriet said as she pulled it on over her shorts.
    "Take your shorts off,” Connie ordered. “The waist has to fit well if it's going to hold all that fabric up."
    "Yes, ma'am.” Harriet wriggled her shorts off under the skirt.
    "By the by, chiquita,” Connie said around a mouth full of straight pins. “I went to coffee this morning with your aunt and Jenny and Mavis. It sounded like Mavis is leaving town for a couple of days. Her son in Portland called and said their babysitter had to go to an out-of-town funeral and asked if Mavis could come fill in until she gets back. I think she's going to do it. She told him she needed to be back for the re-enactment."
    "Wow, that's kind of sudden,” Harriet said, mentally scanning her remaining to-do list to see if she had any items with Mavis's name on them. She realized that what she'd needed from Mavis was moral support. Everything else was well on its way to being done.
    Connie was just putting the last pins in the hem of the skirt when the door opened and Bebe Brewster came in without knocking, a cloud of designer perfume entering with her.
    "Hi, Harriet,” she said. “I need Mavis to remake Carlton's vest. She dropped it off this morning, way too early, I might add. Anyway, there must have been some mistake.” She pulled a wool vest out of the paper bag she was carrying. “It's all dull and gray.” She held it with two fingers as if it were contaminated then dropped it on a wingback chair. “This won't do. She needs to make another one out of a brighter fabric, something to match my dress."
    "What color is your dress?” Harriet asked, afraid to hear the answer.
    "Why, pink, of course. I had a dressmaker in Seattle make it."
    "Men didn't wear pink in Civil War times,” Connie said.
    "We don't know that. No one knows what every single person wore back then. I'm sure there was a man somewhere who wore a pink vest, and Carlton is going to be