But although no one had renounced their plans to leave the series, the Patchwork Players seemed much more inclined to stay together than before they had come to Elm Creek Manor. That was a good foundation to build upon, and they still had three days to go.
Sylvia, Maggie, and Gretchen were waiting for the cast and crew when they arrived at their classroom, which had been rearrangedin their absence. The treadle sewing machine had been moved into the corner. The supplies and notions that had once graced each student’s place had been cleared away. On the back table Julia and Edna had shared, a striking sampler quilt in rich holiday red, green, gold, and cream hues had been neatly folded, the visible side held snuggly within the circle of a quilting hoop. In the center of the room, two of the student tables had been pushed together, side to side rather than end to end, and draped with a clean, white sheet. Gretchen was at the ironing table pressing open a seam that united two long pieces of unbleached muslin. When the students entered, she smiled a welcome, set aside the iron, and unplugged it. Sylvia was picking stray threads from the Nine-Patch quilt top, which was draped upon the instructors’ table at the front of the room. Maggie was at another student table near the front, smoothing the wrinkles from a queen-sized piece of fluffy, white batting.
Some of the students found seats at the unoccupied tables, while others strolled about observing their instructors’ work until Gretchen beckoned them to gather around the front table, where she had set a tray of pencils, quarter-inch masking tape, a crosshatch stencil, and several clear acrylic rulers of various sizes beside their Nine-Patch quilt top. “Now that you’ve finished piecing your charming quilt top,” she said, “we need to mark the designs our quilting stitches will follow.”
“With pencils?” asked Marisa, the production assistant, dubiously.
“Not with a standard Number Two,” Gretchen assured her. “These are special fabric pencils that wash out easily. There are dark colors for marking light fabrics, and white and yellow for marking dark fabrics. Some quilters prefer dressmaker’s chalk, but I like the fine, precise line you can draw with a well-sharpened pencil.” She went on to demonstrate how to mark the quilting designs on the surface, either by using a stencil or by drawing straight lines with a ruler or quarter-inch masking tape as a guide. “You can also put a printed pattern from a book ormagazine beneath the fabric and trace it,” she added, “but unless you have a light box, that only works with light-colored fabrics.”
Returning her pencil to the basket, Gretchen stepped aside and invited the Patchwork Players to take turns marking the quilt top, using her drawn lines as a template for similar sections of the quilt. Since only a few students could work comfortably at a time, they needed the rest of the morning to mark the entire quilt. They broke for lunch and a half hour of free time, which Julia spent in her room answering emails—but leaving unanswered one from Maury, in which he suggested the following Wednesday at two o’clock for their conversation about future projects. She also set out her Cross and Chains block segments in anticipation of her conference call with the Cross-Country Quilters later. She had told her friends that she would join the call in progress and might not be able to stay on the line long, but not even quilt camp could keep her from their weekly gathering across the miles.
Julia returned to the classroom with a few minutes to spare. She was chatting with Nigel, who was both enlivened and wistful after a long-distance conversation with Alistair, when Gretchen raised her hands for attention. At that moment, Paige rushed into the room. “Sorry,” she said to the Elm Creek Quilters, breathless, before offering an apologetic glance to the class. “I was on the phone with my agent.”
“Did you get the part?” asked Louis.
“Nothing official yet,” she said, her smile somehow both radiant and tentative, “but it’s looking good.”
“Awesome!” Louis said, sweeping her up in a hug while she squealed with laughter. Julia and Nigel exchanged a significant glance, complete with raised eyebrows.
“Now that you’ve marked your quilt top,” Gretchen called above the general din of questions and congratulations, “we’ll teach you how to layer and baste it.”
“‘Baste it’?” echoed Jason, frowning quizzically. “You mean like a turkey?”
Julia, Ellen, and Edna burst out laughing, while Lindsay and the Elm Creek Quilters smiled indulgently. The other students waited expectantly for an answer, as if they had been wondering the same thing.
“What?” said Jason, glancing over his shoulder at Julia and Edna as they smothered their laughter. “What did I say?”
“Not that kind of basting,” Gretchen replied kindly. “Basting stitches are large stitches that hold something in place temporarily. You might baste an appliqué to the background fabric so that it stays put while you blind stitch it down. Or you might baste a hem so it stays perfectly even all around while you finish the seam using your sewing machine. But for us, today, basting refers to sewing large stitches through our quilt top, batting, and backing fabric so the three layers don’t shift while we’re quilting them. Basting stitches are removed afterward, so you don’t need to make them small and pretty.”
“So they’re functional rather than decorative?” Olivia asked.
“That’s exactly right,” said Sylvia. “Quilting stitches, which you’ll learn later this morning, should be both. You can also baste a quilt using safety pins, but we’re teaching you thread basting because that’s likely the method Sadie Henderson would have chosen.”
Meanwhile, Gretchen had gathered up the freshly ironed seamed sheet of unbleached muslin. “This is our quilt backing,” she explained, laying it out on the two tables in the center of the room, wrong side up. The nearest students stepped forward to help her smooth it across the surface until nary a wrinkle remained. Next, Maggie brought over the batting and centered it on top of the backing. Then Gretchen and Sylvia picked up the Nine-Patch quilt top by opposite edges and placed it, right side up, upon the batting.
“Many quilters like to call this a quilt sandwich,” Sylvia remarked, gesturing to the assembled stack. “I do have one friend who prefers to call it a quilt parfait.”
“Quilt parfait,” Maggie mused as she retrieved a packet of tapestry needles and a small, rectangular basket containing spools of thread from a supply shelf beneath the instructors’ table. “I think I’m going to use that term in my next pattern book.”
Beckoning the company to gather around, Maggie chose a spool of bright pink thread from the basket, cut a long strand, and threaded her needle. Next, she demonstrated how to sew large, zigzag stitches through the three layers, end to end across the width of the quilt. “The color of the thread isn’t important,” she noted as she slipped the tapestry needle through the layers and pulled the pink thread through. “I prefer to use a color that contrasts with my quilt top, because when it’s time to remove the basting stitches, they’ll be easier to find.” Maggie straightened, glanced around, and handed her needle to Marisa, the long, trailing end of the thread still attached to the quilt. “Now it’s your turn.”
Tentatively, but soon with more confidence, Marisa continued the row of stitches Maggie had begun. “There’s room for more people down the length of the quilt,” said Gretchen. “Thread a needle and give it a try.”
After a bit of playful grappling for the packet of needles, three more aspiring quilters joined in the basting, looking rather liberated by the thought that their stitches needn’t be small and precise as long as they held the three layers together until they could be quilted. Julia hung back and let the others precede her, even skipping her turn to let the newbies get more practice. She was having enough fun simply watching her friends delight in mastering a new skill.
When the quilt sandwich was basted, though, Julia stepped forward and carefully helped roll it up to make it easier to carry to the quilting frame, which Gretchen said was elsewhere in the ballroom. “But first,” she said, “Maggie is going to demonstrate how to quilt with a lap hoop.”
“My understanding from my conversations with Julia is that you want to know how to quilt at a frame,” Sylvia said. “I’ve watched everyseason ofA Patchwork Life, and from what I recall, Sadie Henderson and her friends always prefer that method. However, I believe it’s worthwhile for you to learn to quilt with a lap hoop too.” She gestured to the back table, where Maggie was retrieving the quilt Julia had noticed earlier. “Both in Sadie’s era and today, many quilters prefer lap hoops for their portability, the ease of use when one is quilting alone rather than with a group, and their dimensions. A full-sized quilting frame requires more storage space.”
Maggie took a seat in a tall chair Gretchen had placed in front of the instructors’ table, draped the sampler over her lap, and reached for her sewing basket on the table behind her. “What quilt is that?” Ellen asked, drawing closer for a better look. “It’s gorgeous. I love the bright, clear colors, and all the different block patterns are exquisite. Is this a new Harriet’s Journey quilt?”
“It is, and it may be my last one for a while,” said Maggie. “I call it Harriet’s Holiday for the color palette and the Christmas prints. I meant to make another full-sized Harriet’s Journey quilt, all one hundred blocks, but I had only finished thirty-six when I signed the contract for my new pattern book, and I really need to get working on quilts for that—”
“You’re writing a new pattern book?” Julia exclaimed.
Maggie nodded, smiling. “Yes, a pattern book for the Loyal Union Sampler, one of the quilts on display in Summer Sullivan’s exhibit downtown.” The campers who had toured the gallery nodded in recognition. “My publisher wants to include photos of other quilts made from the sampler blocks for creative inspiration, so as soon as I finish Harriet’s Holiday, I’ll get to work on those.”
“Oh, how wonderful! May I tell the other Cross-Country Quilters?”
