Oh....! This book. I love it so.
I remember reading it for the first time years ago and I didn't love it. It seemed complicated and melodramatic and over-the-top. But picking it up again lately, I loved it.
I have no idea what this says about me or the book, but there you have it.
Quilt patterns
The Quiltmaker lives in the mountains, creating beautiful quilts seemingly out of natural materials.
Rich people try to buy her magnificent quilts, but the quiltmaker will not sell them.
Instead, she finds a needy soul in the nearby city and gives him or her the quilt.
The local, greedy king has everything heart could desire. Literally. There he is in the bottom left hand corner, being covered up by all this things.
Oh, the things to look at on these pages.
The king asked for a quilt, but was refused. So he did the reasonable thing and sent an army to the Quiltmaker to forcibly take a quilt from her.
The quiltmaker did the reasonable thing and let her quilt float away on the wind.
So the king chained her up in front of a bear cave.
(Reasonableness is a theme in this book.)
Of course, the king felt so bad he woke the army up early in the morning and make them march in their pajamas to rescue the quiltmaker. The quiltmaker and her charmingness won over the bear and they were having a companionable breakfast together.
Which enraged the king again.
So the king sent her to the tiniest island in the world. But of course, the quiltmaker's generosity and kindness saves her once again.
(There is a small possibility this book is melodramatic.)
Finally the king is willing to do what he needs to do to get a quilt.
He starts giving away his things.
As difficult as the first gift was, it got easier as he went along.
Soon he was traveling far and wide giving everything away.
Everytime he gave something away, a small sparrow would fly back to the quiltmaker to tell her he had given away another possession.
And for every gift he made, the quiltmaker sewed a new stitch.
When finally the king had given everything away, the quiltmaker found him.
And the king was then in the condition that he could receive the most magnificent quilt the quiltmaker had ever made.
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