Later, after a shower and change of clothes and a quick but tasty breakfast, Julia joined the other Patchwork Players in the classroom. Their block pieces remained where they had left them the previous morning, but new notions had been added to each student’s supplies—a small, plastic box of shiny sewing pins; two needles called sharps, inserted in a piece of black felt for safekeeping; a spool of light beige thread, the same hue as unbleached muslin; a thimble; and a seam ripper. Sylvia wasn’t there, but Maggie Flynn had joined Gretchen at the front of the classroom.
“Maggie is our resident expert in nineteenth-century sewing and quilting,” Gretchen introduced her, smiling fondly at her fellow instructor. “She’ll be taking over the class today, and I’ll be her assistant. Maggie, take it away.”
The class welcomed Maggie with a warm round of applause, which she clearly wasn’t expecting, judging by her shy smile. She looked younger than her forty years, with long waves of light brown hair held back by a tortoiseshell barrette, hazel eyes set in a gentle, oval face, and a sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks. “Today I’ll teach you how to hand piece a quilt block, just as Sadie Henderson would have done back in the late nineteenth century.” She gave their worktables a searching look before nodding, satisfied. “I see you all have your block pieces ready to go, so let’s begin.”
Demonstrating with two fabric squares of her own, she instructed them to take one of their focus fabric squares and one of unbleached muslin, place them together with the right sides facing, and pin them together on the sewing line. “You can pin the corners first, and then ease the fabric smooth along the width,” she said. “Use as many or as few pins as necessary to keep the fabrics secure. If you’ve measured, drawn, and cut your squares correctly, they should be the exact same size, so the sewing lines should match up perfectly, corner to corner.”
“How perfectly do you mean, exactly?” asked Jason. “Is there, you know, an acceptable margin of error?”
“There really shouldn’t be any noticeable difference,” said Maggie.“If one of your squares is larger than the other, measure them and see which one is correct.”
“Perhaps they’re both wrong,” Nigel suggested, prompting chuckles and grins from the others.
“No, I’m good,” said Jason, setting his ruler aside. “I’ll just stretch this one a little and it’ll be fine.”
Julia was about to caution him not to distort the fabric, but before she could speak, he grasped his muslin square by two corners and tugged fiercely. He looked so pleased with his solution that she let it go. At least he hadn’t torn it in half.
“Now that you all have your first two squares properly pinned,” Maggie said, looking around the room to make sure, “let’s sew them together. First, cut a piece of thread about the distance from your elbow to your fingertips. Anything longer is likely to tangle; anything shorter and you’ll have to interrupt your sewing to cut another piece soon.”
The students followed her instructions, some with brisk confidence, others more tentatively. When everyone was ready, Maggie told them to tie a knot at the end of the thread.
“What kind of knot?” Jason asked.
“A bowline knot,” Dylan quipped. “Or a double overhand stopper.”
“I’d rather a half Windsor,” said Nigel.
“A simple overhand knot will do,” said Maggie, amused. “No need to complicate things. You can double knot it if you want to make it extra secure.”
Julia deftly tied a double knot, then removed one of the needles from the felt and threaded it. From the corner of her eye, she saw Edna doing the same.
“Now take one of your needles, slip the other end of the thread through the eye, and pull it through about a third of the way,” said Maggie, demonstrating.
“Done and done,” Edna said, so quietly that only Julia could hear.
“We’re at the head of the class,” Julia murmured.
“There’s only room for one at the top,” Edna retorted, grinning, “and that’s going to be me.”
“In your dreams.”
By then the rest of the class had caught up to them, even those who had never held a needle before.
“Now we’ll sew our squares together using a running stitch,” said Maggie. “This is a row of small, even stitches along the sewing line that runs through both pieces of fabric without overlapping.” She held up two white fabric triangles stitched together with black thread along the longest edge. “Usually we choose a thread that matches the fabric, but in this case, I chose black for contrast so you could see the stitches better.”
“It looks like a dashed line,” said Paige.
“That’s right.” Setting aside the example, Maggie picked up her pinned squares in her left hand and her threaded needle in the right. Narrating each step and holding her work so it was readily visible in the overhead mirror, she placed her needle at the very end of her drawn sewing line, pushed the tip through both layers, and slipped it through to the top again, staying on the line and catching only a small bit of fabric. “That is a single running stitch,” she said, pulling the thread through until it caught on the knot. “Now you try. Feel free to wear a thimble, if you wish, to protect your fingertip.”
“I can’t even fit my pinky into this thing,” remarked Dylan, the largest person in the company.
“We have a variety of sizes,” Gretchen said. “If anyone would like something larger or smaller, raise your hand and I’ll come by with the basket.”
Julia had brought her favorite thimble from home, so she was all set. Edna had brought an entire sewing case. “Race you,” Edna murmured, but before Julia could even pick up her pieces, Edna set hers down on the table, securely stitched together, and folded her hands. “Done.”
“Not fair,” Julia murmured back, feigning outrage. “You took a head start.”
Maggie and Gretchen were strolling the aisles, checking the students’ work and offering advice to those who were confused. Returning to the front of the room, Maggie showed her own work again. “Now, since this is the very beginning of our sewing line, we’re going to take a backstitch to secure it. First, push the needle back down through the first hole you made, or at least very close to it. Then push the needle back on through to the top again a little further down the sewing line, as if you’re making another running stitch.” She showed them how it was done, pulling the thread smoothly through the layers and tugging gently to demonstrate that it held fast, but not so tightly that the fabric bunched together as if it were on a drawstring. “You should always backstitch at the beginning and the end of your sewing line. Some hand piecers like to take a backstitch every five or six stitches to keep the thread tension consistent.”
