Arlene Sachitano - Quilter's Knot

Selestina finally concluded her introductory lecture at ten minutes before eleven. Patience stood up and, in a well-choreographed move, unfurled a lap-sized sample. She held it up and carried it slowly down the center aisle. A simple feather pattern had been stitched on cream-colored muslin.

"When a quilt is made using a single, continuous piece of fabric on the top and another single piece of fabric for its backing, we call it a whole cloth quilt . Quilts of this type have been popular in England for hundreds of years,” Selestina explained. “In America, however, fabric was scarce until industry developed and fabric mills were built."

Harriet was afraid Patience's arms were going to break before Selestina got them through the Industrial Revolution and up to modern times, but she finally finished; and Patience spread the quilt over the front table.

Selestina glanced at a delicate silver watch that encircled her wrist. “We will now take a break for lunch. You will return at one p.m. sharp,” she said. Without another word, she turned and disappeared around the curtain.

"Oh, my gosh,” Carla moaned. “My head hurts."

"My tail is going numb from sitting in one position for so long.” Harriet stood up and went to the head table. She pulled the curtain aside and looked behind it. As she did, Patience came through a closed door concealed there.

"Can I help you?” she asked. She was carrying a tray that had a wooden hoop, a thimble, a pincushion with needles sticking out of it and a small rack with several spools of thread on it.

Harriet had the good grace to blush. “I just wondered what was behind the curtain,” she said and let it fall back into place. “You know, like in the Wizard of Oz ."

"All the classrooms open into a common center area that's divided into offices and storage space,” Patience explained. “It allows teachers to move efficiently from one classroom to the other, as well."

"How efficient,” Harriet said.

"If you'll excuse me,” Patience said, and Harriet realized she was blocking her path to the front table. She returned to the table where Carla waited.

"Let's go find the others,” she said.

Connie was waiting on the steps.

"I thought your group was having lunch brought in,” Harriet said.

"It turned out the long-term students in the class made that arrangement, not the actual dyeing class. They made sure we knew we weren't part of their club."

Harriet put her arm around Connie's shoulders. “We still love you, right, Carla?"

"Yeah, Señora Escorcia, we'll eat lunch with you,” Carla said with a half-smile. Connie had taught her first graders basic Spanish vocabulary, including the proper form of address for a married woman. Carla's use of the term revealed her past history as one of “Connie's kids,” as her former students liked to call themselves.

Lunch was the expected soup. This one was a white chili made with chicken breast, cannellini beans, rotel tomatoes and green chilies. It was seasoned with cumin and oregano and topped with jack cheese and lime juice.

"I'm telling you,” Connie said as she pushed back from the table and her empty bowl, “I talked to Lauren for over an hour. I asked her if she was inspired by another quilt. She was insulted, and I finally just told her about the piece Beth saw. She insists her piece was completely original. She even showed me the chunk of bark she used as inspiration. She has it in a plastic sandwich bag in her sewing box."

"Don't stop there,” Mavis urged. “How did it look?"

"Mostly, like a piece of tree bark. I have to say her dyeing was a good match to the color."

"Figures.” Mavis looked down at her dye-stained fingers. “She's spent all this time copying other people's work, and she'll be the one who turns out to have all kinds of talent."

"The stitching pattern didn't match, though,” Connie pointed out. “The tree bark didn't have the figure-eight pattern that was so distinct in Lauren's piece."

"Okay, I guess she can stay in the group, then,” Mavis said and smiled. She glanced at the wall clock in the dining room. “Come on, we need to get back."

"Hopefully, we'll get to do something this afternoon,” Harriet said to Carla.

Patience was waiting just inside the door to the classroom when Harriet and Carla entered. She handed each of them a stapled handout.

"Please take out your hoop, quilting needle, thread, scissors and thimble and put everything else under your table. Do not touch the fabric sandwich you will find at your workspace."

Harriet and Carla looked at each other. Carla's face had a determined set to it, but Harriet just rolled her eyes and led the way back to their workstation, where they found the layered muslin fabric and batting Patience had referred to as a “sandwich."

"This looks promising,” Harriet said in a hushed tone. “I'm not sure why I'm whispering, though,” she added with a laugh.

"It's because that scarecrow at the door is so intimidating,” said a short plump woman at the table behind theirs. She was dressed from head to toe in pale-blue denim covered in machine embroidered motifs of puppies and kittens.

The woman glanced nervously back toward the door, checking to be sure she hadn't been heard. “I came here to learn how to stitch, not to be treated like a misbehaving schoolgirl."

"It's a small price to pay for being able to learn from one of the top experts in the field,” said the other woman at her table. Harriet hadn't noticed before lunch, but the second woman was wearing a dark skirt and white blouse that were very reminiscent of Selestina's. “Her work hangs in galleries and museums all over Europe."

Carla's eyes widened. Harriet could see she was impressed.

"Trust me,” she whispered. “There's nothing magic about having her work in Europe. They obviously have a longer preserved-textile history than we do in America, but their contemporary work is done by people just like us."

The disbelief was plain on Carla's face.

"Okay, so it's done by people like we will be when we finish taking all our classes,” Harriet said and grinned. She could see Carla was still skeptical. “I went to boarding school in London and Paris and a bunch of other places, and trust me-they all put their socks on one foot at a time, just like us."

"Please, take your seats,” Patience instructed them.

The room fell silent as everyone sat. Patience walked down the aisle, glancing at each table as she passed. She stopped at the second table on the right side of the aisle, picked up a ruler and marking pen from the surface and dropped them into the sewing bag underneath. There was a slight rustle as several other students removed items and stowed them in their sewing bags.

Patience took one last sweeping glance around the room and, satisfied that only the listed items were on each table, swept behind the curtain.

Selestina appeared within moments.

"Hand quilting is an art,” she began. “Although in recent centuries it has taken a back seat to elaborate piecing and embellishment techniques, hand quilting is very able to stand on its own. Down through the ages, many beautiful works of art have been created that are no more than careful stitching on a blank piece of cloth. Please hoop the fabric sandwich that is on your table."

Quilting hoops consist of two concentric rings with one fitting closely inside the other, like embroidery hoops. They are commonly made of wood, but can also be made of plastic or combinations of metal and plastic. The purpose of a hoop is to hold the quilt sandwich smooth and to better enable a stitcher to accomplish her task. The larger of the two rings is centered on the area of the quilt sandwich to be worked, the smaller is placed underneath and then the two rings are pushed together, one inside the other, trapping the quilt and pulling it taut.