Arlene Sachitano: Quilt By Association

"I'm not talking about our age difference. I'm just making a general observation about the self-perceived invincibility of youth."

"Good, because frankly, we're all getting a little tired of your constant harping about it."

"I don't harp."

Aunt Beth rolled her eyes. “You ready to head out?"

"Let me get my bag and sweater,” Harriet said.

Beth followed her into the studio then out to the driveway, where they got into Beth's silver Beetle and made the short drive to Pins and Needles.

"Hi, Carla,” Harriet said as she came into the quilt store. Carla Salter was the youngest member of the Loose Threads and worked part-time at Pins and Needles. She no longer needed the extra income since Aiden Jalbert had hired her as his fulltime housekeeper, but clerking at the store allowed her to get out. Her toddler Wendy enjoyed going to the drop-in day care at the Methodist church, too, so it worked well for all concerned.

"Did you guys make any progress on the dog quilt yesterday?” Carla asked. She had missed the meeting because of Wendy's well baby checkup.

"Our quilt blocks didn't go very well together, and then Lauren arrived, and she had just seen the quilt the Small Stitches were working on, and it was our idea, only better. They used coordinated fabrics instead of going scrappy, like we did. I guess they did similar dog faces, too."

"That's sort of weird,” Carla said as she folded the half-yard piece of fabric she'd just cut.

"That's what I said, but Lauren pointed out there are only a few specifically dog-related images, and dog faces are probably on everybody's short list."

"I guess."

"That's why we're meeting again today. We're shelving our dog-face blocks and trying to come up with another plan. Will you be able to help us?"

"Yeah, Marjory said I could take a break for the meeting, but I'm just making half-yard cuts of the new Jo Morton fabric that came in. If no one cares, I thought I could move my cutting mat into the meeting room and keep working while we talk."

"I'm sure the Threads will applaud your industriousness,” Harriet said, causing Carla's cheeks to turn a becoming shade of pink.

"Is anyone else here yet?” Jenny asked as she came through the door. She was dressed in chestnut-colored corduroy pants and an olive-green sweater, one of the first in the group to concede that summer was truly over and pull out her fall wardrobe.

"Aunt Beth is in back there somewhere,” Harriet said and gestured toward the classrooms. “This is as far as I've gotten, so I don't know who else is."

"Mavis and Connie got here just before you,” Carla volunteered.

"Am I late?” Sarah asked as she breezed in, late as usual.

"See you inside,” Jenny said and headed for the back.

"The meeting hasn't started, if that's what you're asking,” Harriet told Sarah.

"I hope they plan on starting soon. I have to be back to work in…” She glanced at her watch. “…fifty-two minutes."

"You better get in there, then, and get everyone organized,” Harriet said.

Sarah hurried to the back of the store, brushing Harriet as she passed.

"You're bad,” Carla said when she was out of earshot.

"Mavis and Connie can handle Sarah,” Harriet told her.

"I thought Mavis said Sarah's parents owned the senior center where she works."

"They do. If you're thinking she can't be fired, you'd be thinking right. In fact, I'd be willing to bet money the other people working at the center are hoping our meeting runs long."

Carla smiled and gathered her rotary cutter and three bolts of fabric and headed to the meeting. Harriet followed, and was settling in her customary place at the table when Robin McLeod and DeAnn Gault entered the room.

"Anyone want coffee or tea?” Robin asked after she set her bag on the table.

"I'll take some tea,” Harriet said, and after a few minutes Robin delivered a steaming mug then took her seat at the table.

"Well, ladies,” Mavis began. “Did anyone have any brilliant ideas overnight?"

The Loose Threads spent the next hour brainstorming. They didn't allow any criticism of the list until it had ten designs on it. This didn't mean Lauren and Sarah didn't comment on every choice; it only meant everyone tuned them out more than usual.

"Okay,” Robin said and laid her pen down. “We should be able to come up with something out of all this.” As the member who always had a tablet and pen in her purse, she invariably ended up facilitating any planning functions the Loose Threads did. “Shall we discuss them one by one?"

"Why don't we see if anyone has an outright objection to anything on the list?” DeAnn suggested and looked around the table to see if anyone agreed with her.

A soft rap on the doorjamb interrupted the discussion before it got started.

"Marjory told me it would be okay to come back and talk to you,” said a slender, sandy-haired man-Joseph Marston, a social worker for a local adoption agency.

"Hello, Joseph,” Mavis said. “Come on in."

He did but remained standing. A large pink-and-green pastel-colored quilt was folded over his right arm.

"Here, set that down,” Aunt Beth said, and took the quilt from him. Connie got up and helped her lay it on the end of the table.

"What have you got there, Joseph?” Mavis asked.

Marston cleared his throat.

"Someone donated four quilts to the agency, and I'm not sure what to do with them,” he said. “They're really big, so I brought one to show you."

The agency Joseph referred to was Little Lamb Adoption Services. Harriet wouldn't have known about the place except that DeAnn was in the process of adopting a baby girl, and Marston was the social worker overseeing the process. Most of their Loose Threads meetings lately had begun with DeAnn describing the various interviews and inspections she and her family were going through. Joe was a gentle, soft-spoken man, an attribute that helped his clients keep their sanity as they negotiated a stressful undertaking.

"Let's see what we've got here,” Aunt Beth said.

She unfolded the quilt, and the Loose Threads cleared their bags and cups off the table and helped spread it out. The quilt had been done in an overall pattern of large pinwheels separated by equal-sized blocks of plain fabric. Harriet estimated the blocks were ten-inch squares.

"We don't really have a use for bed quilts,” Joseph offered. “Baby quilts would have been more useful."

No one said anything for a minute while they examined the quilt, turning edges over and rubbing the fabric between their fingers.

"This one's in great shape,” Connie said. “Grab the other end, mi'ja,” she told Harriet. “Let's fold it into quarters."

Harriet did as requested, and they re-centered the folded blanket on the table.

"Are you thinking we should cut it into quarters and rebind them?” Aunt Beth asked.

"Good idea,” Jenny said. “We can remove the old binding completely so we don't have to try to match the fabric."

"We could add a four-inch border to each piece, too,” Robin suggested. “That way, we'd have fresh fabric to apply the binding to. We could put batting in the border like you do with the quilt-as-you-go technique."

"I like that,” Harriet said. “It would insure the quilts are crib-sized. I could stitch pinwheel designs in the borders with my machine. It looks like they did stitch-in-the-ditch for their quilting,” she added, referring to the technique where quilt stitches are hidden by placing them very close to the seams in pieced quilt tops. She flipped the top layer of the folded quilt over, revealing the backing fabric.

Jenny ran her hand over the stitched fabric, tracing the patterns she found.

"Definitely stitch-in-the-ditch,” she pronounced.