Quiltingboard Forums - Story about batting

My dear Mother-in-law lived in a small New England town that had a commons in the center of town. Every summer the local senior center would sell raffle tickets for a quilt that had been made for that purpose.

One summer we were visiting MIL and I took a very nasty fall that caused horrible bruising and contusions on my right leg and knee. I was not allowed to fly home when we had planned and was told I would not be able to fly until all of the bruising was gone because of the chance of blood clots.

I had to stay an extra month and was seriously driving MIL crazy I think because she finally rented a wheelchair and took me to the fabric store. I bought fabric, a small cutting board, and a small cutter and found a featherweight in a second hand store for $20. I went back to MIL's and made a queen size top and then found a small quilt shop that had a long arm she didn't have any idea how to use. I showed the owner how the machine set up and how to operate it and I quilted the quilt I had pieced on the machine showing the owner every step.

Now I always use cotton batting because I am allergic to poly and wool and that goes for sewing on them too. I bound the quilt and decided to donate it to the senior center as they didn't have a quilt for that year.

The ladies at the center had "the face" when they seen the quilt. You know what face I am talking about! The one that says "Oh, what would we want to sell THAT for!" They said that they had never raffled off a "skinny" quilt before. But since it was going on July and they didn't have a thick quilt to raffle off they agree to try the skinny quilt that year.

They had their 1000 raffle tickets printed up and I bought 10 before I left for home. Had to take Amtrak because my leg wasn't healed well enough to fly and I needed to get back home. I know my MIL bought 10 also. I went in the wheelchair to the July 4th celebration on the commons and the ladies were all saying how they thought the skinny quilt wasn't going to do that well but they sold out of the 1000 tickets before the end of the day!

Because they always sold ticket for the quilt all the way through Thanksgiving they were going to have another 1000 tickets printed up. Instead of just buying 1 ticket people were buying 40-50 tickets at a time! By Halloween they had already sold the maximum amount of tickets the law allowed them to sell as a non-profit...5000!

It turned out there were many people who had been reluctant to buy tickets for the thick quilts but had no such problem buying lots for a thin quilt and the senior center sent me a thank you card after the drawing they did on Halloween. They said they asked people why they were so excited with such a thin quilt when the weather around there warranted a thick quilt?

The answer was simple. You can always add another thin quilt on a cold night but if the thick quilt was too warm what do you do? I did take a photo of the quilt on MIL's bed before we took it to the senior center and will try to post it here if I can get it to post.