“My mom will be absolutely thrilled,” Lindsay said. “Will the book be out in time for Christmas?”
“Not this Christmas,” Maggie said apologetically. “I’m stillwriting the manuscript. It’s fine if you tell your friends and family about it, as long as you explain that it’s at least a year away.”
“It’ll be worth the wait, I’m sure,” said Julia. “In fact, take your time. I need to finish my Harriet’s Journey quilt first, and I’m only on the third row.”
“In the meantime, let’s perfect our hand quilting.” Balancing the quilt and hoop on her lap, Maggie took a needle from the pincushion in her sewing basket and held it up for all to see. “You used a sharp for piecing and a tapestry needle for basting. Now I’ll introduce you to a between. They’re thicker and sturdier than sharps, which makes them perfect for hand quilting. This is a nine between. The number indicates the size. The higher the number, the smaller the needle. I usually use a twelve, but nine is a good size for a beginner.”
Julia preferred a ten, herself.
Maggie cut a length of beige thread about eighteen inches long and slipped one end through the eye of her needle. “I prefer to use a quilter’s knot for hand quilting,” she said. While the company watched closely, she held the end of the needle and about a half inch of the thread tail between her left thumb and forefinger. With her right hand, she wrapped the thread clockwise around the needle three times to make a coil. Then, shifting her grip, she pinched the coil and the tail end with her left thumb and forefinger, grasped the needle near the point with her right, and gently pulled the needle through the coil, continuing until the entire length of thread was pulled through and only a small, neat, firm knot remained near the end of the thread.
Next, with her right hand beneath the quilt and her left steadying the hoop, Maggie pushed the needle through the backing and batting and out the top, the tip of the needle piercing one of the drawn quilting lines. Grasping the needle with her right hand and slipping her left beneath the hoop, she pulled the thread all the way through, and then gave the thread a careful tug to pop the knot through the back and into the batting, guiding it along with her left hand.
“Do you see how the knot is concealed within the layers?” Maggie asked, carefully turning the hoop over so they could see the back of the quilt, where neither the knot nor a hole in the fabric was visible. “With practice, you’ll learn how to tug hard enough to pop the knot through the backing and trap it in the batting without yanking it all the way through the top.”
“That’s a neat trick,” Dylan remarked. “I guess it beats having a bunch of ugly knots on the back of your quilt.”
“Exactly.” Maggie gave him an approving nod as she turned the quilt back over. “I’m right-handed, so I’ll put my thimble on the first finger of my right hand and put my left hand underneath the quilt.” Narrating each step, Maggie demonstrated how to sew through all three layers. First, using the finger protected by the thimble, she pushed the needle through the top of the quilt. When the tip of the needle touched her left forefinger on the other side, she pushed the tip of the needle back through the layers to the top. By rocking her right hand back and forth in this manner, she gathered a few stitches on her needle. Then she pulled the needle and the length of thread all the way through to the top, leaving behind four small running stitches in a straight row along the penciled quilting design.
“Well done,” Julia declared, and the company burst into applause.
Maggie looked up from her work, so surprised she laughed. “I’ve never received a standing ovation for a few quilting stitches before. Usually students just nod and murmur.” Smiling, she repeated the motions, slowly and carefully. “Don’t worry about making your stitches small at first. Instead, focus on making them of equal length, both on the top and on the bottom. The more you practice, the smaller your stitches will become over time.”
She quilted an elegant feathered plume in the center of a star block for another few minutes, pausing now and then to ask the students to trade places so that everyone had the opportunity to study the motions of her hands up close. Then she folded Harriet’s Holidayinto a neat bundle and set it on the instructors’ table. “Now it’s timeto quiltyourtop,” she said, rising from her chair and offering the class an encouraging grin. “Sylvia, if you’d like to lead the way?”
Nodding graciously, Sylvia asked Paige and Louis, who were nearest, to pick up the rolled, basted Nine-Patch quilt and then invited everyone to follow her to the quilting frame. Exiting the classroom, they went around the partition walls and headed for the southeast corner of the room, where the quilting frame awaited them. About four feet across and six feet long, the rectangular wooden frame stood on four sturdy legs that raised it to table height. At the corners were various assemblies of knobs and gears with slender rods running the length of the frame between them. Three chairs were arranged on both of the long sides, allowing six quilters to work comfortably at the same time.
Julia noticed several members of the cast and crew nodding in recognition as they studied it. Sadie Henderson kept a frame very much like this one in her farmhouse—or rather, the prop makers had constructed one for the studio set of the interior of Sadie’s home.
But at least one of the company was distracted by the larger, more modern piece of equipment a few yards away. “What isthat?” Louis asked, giving it an appraising look.
“That is a longarm quilting machine,” said Gretchen, turning. “It’s a bit flashier than the Bergstrom family’s wooden frame, isn’t it?”
“Maybe a little,” said Paige, with a comical shrug.
“It’s essentially a large sewing machine with a long throat—the space between the needle enclosed by the base and the horizontal and vertical arms,” said Gretchen. “It’s mounted on a system of rails that allows you to move the needle over the surface of the quilt rather than feeding the quilt beneath the needle. When you use a longarm, instead of moving the quilt through the sewing machine, you move the sewing machine across the quilt. Instead of basting your quilt sandwich, you place your quilt top, batting, and backing onto different rollers, pull everything taut and smooth, and stitch away.”
“Will we have a chance to try it out?” asked Louis.
“Not with your Nine-Patch quilt, you won’t,” said Maggie, smiling. “A longarm quilting machine would definitely be a historical anomaly in Sadie Henderson’s household.”
“That pretty Chandelier quilt on the rollers is Sarah’s work in progress,” said Sylvia. “I’ll ask if she’s free to demonstrate the longarm after dinner this evening. I can’t make any promises, but she may even allow you to make a few practice stitches on her quilt, in the interest of education.”
“I’m sure she’d appreciate the help,” said Gretchen. “It’s nearly finished, but between work and the twins, she hardly has a minute to spare for quilting.”
Edna shook her head, sympathetic. “It’s hard to imagine anything more tragic than an Elm Creek Quilter who doesn’t have time to quilt.”
Julia could think of something more tragic—an acclaimed actress on the verge of losing her beloved, award-winning series—but she didn’t say so aloud.
“At the moment, though, you have your own quilt to work on,” said Gretchen, beckoning them back to the quilt frame.
After the company gathered around, Gretchen and Maggie carefully placed the shorter ends of the quilt sandwich around the rollers along the long sides of the quilt frame. By adjusting the gears, the three layers could be held firmly and smoothly without being stretched to the point of distortion. The middle of the quilt top was visible now, but when they finished quilting that section, they could bring the other parts into view by adjusting the rollers.
“I have a confession to make,” said Gretchen. “For this style of frame, we didn’t actually need to baste the quilt sandwich first. We could have just placed the backing, batting, and quilt top around the rollers.”
“What?” Olivia exclaimed, feigning outrage. “We did all that extra work for nothing?”
“We wanted to teach you how to thread baste in case you neededthat for a future episode,” Maggie explained, joining in the company’s laughter. “Also, if you’re not able to complete the quilting before you leave, your quilt sandwich will be much easier to transport if it’s basted.”
