Arlene Sachitano: Quilt As Desired

Marjory cut Jenny's fabrics, rang up the total and punched Jenny's Needle Points card. Jenny was one purchase away from filling her card, which would entitle her to twenty dollars in free fabric or notions. Harriet purchased two of the square-cut quarter-yard pieces known in the quilting world as fat quarters and received her first punch on her own card.

"I'm parked around the corner,” Jenny said, and held the door for her.

Jenny parked her BMW sedan in Harriet's circular driveway and carried her quilt into the studio.

"This isn't as fancy as Avanell's,” she said.

"It doesn't have to be fancy. I've seen a number of blue ribbon winners that were well executed traditional patterns. Workmanship and color choice make a big difference in a quilt."

"Avanell's are always well crafted and fancy,” Jenny countered. “Who would have thought to combine trapunto with traditional pieced blocks and then hand-dye the fabric to boot?"

"It is a nice quilt,” Harriet admitted.

"Lauren's nuts if she thinks anything she designed would outshine Avanell's work."

"I've never seen Lauren's."

"When you do, you'll see what I'm talking about. She has potential, but she just hurries too much, and she doesn't understand where the boundaries are between being inspired by someone's work and outright copying. Your aunt tried to explain to her that she couldn't trace pictures out of children's books and then sell them as her own patterns, but she doesn't understand."

"I hope she doesn't ask me to stitch anything like that,” Harriet said.

"You won't have to worry-she does her own quilting on her home sewing machine. You're the quilt depot, aren't you?"

Harriet nodded.

"You'll get to see it then even if she doesn't come to Loose Threads. Check it out when you do-you'll see what I mean. Avanell would have to keel over dead for Lauren to have a chance, and even then it wouldn't be certain."

"Let's have a look at yours,” Harriet said. She didn't want to be forced into taking sides before she'd even met Lauren.

Jenny's quilt was a simple double-four patch set on point. The basic form was four squares of fabric arranged to make a square. In a double-four patch, two diagonal squares were themselves made up of four smaller squares. She'd chosen a rich berry-toned floral as the focus fabric then combined it with pistachio and antique green batiks with a touch of dusty rose hand-dyed cotton. It was a queen-sized bed cover and was destined for the guestroom in Jenny's house after the show.

"This is very nice,” Harriet said. “Have you thought about what style of stitching you want on it?"

"Well, I've toyed with the idea of putting smallish feather patterns continuously in the sashing and then just having parallel lines in the four patch blocks. I'm not sure, though. I would rather have the double four patch blocks as the focus."

On a quilt, sashing pieces were the rectangles of fabric used to frame the main blocks. Harriet had seen a lot of them where the designer had intended the sashing to enhance the pattern but in fact it had done just the opposite. In Jenny's quilt, though, it definitely added to the overall effect.

"What if we put a flower pattern on the double-four patch blocks with mirror images in the matching squares, and then did a simpler version of the flower in the sashing?” she suggested. “That way, the blocks will stand out, but the sashing will still seem like it's framing each block."

She showed Jenny a stack of flower sample blocks, and Jenny chose two she liked. She agreed that Harriet would do a flower that incorporated elements from both samples.

Satisfied that they had a plan, Jenny left the quilt on the table and took her leave. Harriet went back to work on Avanell's.

It took her about two to three hours to do an average job after it had been loaded onto the frame of the long arm machine. She had allotted twice that amount of time for the show quilts-she didn't want to risk a misplaced stitch.

Aunt Beth had suggested she limit the time she ran the machine to about twenty hours a week because of all the bending and reaching the operator had to do. That might be reasonable during normal times, but for the next two weeks, Harriet expected to be working eight or more hours a day, especially if she were going to be stitching who-knew-what at the last minute for Sarah Ness. Besides, she could always get a massage for her aching back after the rush.

She grasped the controls of her machine, pressed the blue go-button and began stitching.

The first week of business flew by. Harriet finished Avanell's and Jenny's quilts and stitched projects for Connie Escorcia and DeAnn DeGault. She had just finished loading Robin McLeod's yellow-and-blue log cabin quilt onto the machine frame when her phone rang.

She crossed the room and picked up the receiver. “Hello."

"You're coming to Loose Threads this morning, aren't you?” Avanell asked her.

"I think so.” Harriet mentally ticked off the work on her schedule. She could probably afford to take a couple of hours off. “Yes, I'll come."

"I'll be coming from work, so how about if I drive to your place and leave my car and we can walk into town?"

Harriet decided a walk would be the perfect antidote to a week spent hunched over the long-arm machine. She agreed, and Avanell said she'd be there in a half-hour.

Foggy Point, Washington, sat on a rocky peninsula that protruded into the Strait of Juan de Fuca just east of Port Angeles. Harriet hadn't paid enough attention in geography class to know if the right-angle bend in the middle of the town's land mass disqualified it from the peninsula category or not. She thought it looked more like the head and claw of a Tyrannosaurus rex, with her own house sitting on a hill at the base of the claw. Rumor had it that the cove formed by the bend had been a favorite hiding spot for pirates back in early Victorian times, when Europeans first discovered Foggy Point's unique charms.

She heard Avanell coming up the drive. She gathered her purse and hand-stitching bag and Avanell's quilt and met the older woman at her car, putting the carefully wrapped quilt in the backseat.

"Are you all right?” she asked. “You look a little pale."

Wisps of grey hair trailed from Avanell's usually tidy bun. Lint clung to the lap area of her navy wool skirt. Dark circles smudged the area under her eyes.

"I'm fine,” Avanell replied. “Things have just been a little hectic at work. One of our key employees left this week, and it's just getting harder and harder to find quality replacements. And… never mind, let's not drag this nice morning down talking about work problems,” she said, trying but failing to lighten her tone. “Tell me how the quilts are looking."

"Yours is ready to bind, of course,” Harriet said. “I'm done with all the show quilts that have been scheduled, and I still have a couple of days for Sarah Ness."

"Good for you,” Avanell said and really did smile.

They discussed all the show entries they had seen as they walked. Each woman made her own predictions about who the winners would be for each category. Some would be judged by a panel of local quilting arts luminaries while others would be in categories that were voted on by the show attendees. They were still arguing the merits of Avanell's own quilt when they arrived at Pins and Needles.

"I don't care what you say, Avanell,” Harriet said. “Your quilt is a shoo-in to win the overall prize."

"I agree with Harriet,” said Marjory. “I don't care if Lauren Sawyer got her patterns published or not, Avanell, you still make a better quilt than she ever will."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Avanell said. “From your mouth to the judge's ear, I hope."