Quilt As You Go (5 page)

"Great,” Robin said in a flat voice. She'd called Harriet the night before to discuss the ethics of redoing the binding on one of Sarah's quilts. The binding had obviously been applied with great haste and had gaps where the machine stitching hadn't caught the edge, in spite of Sarah's use of a very wide zigzag stitch. Harriet had to agree with Robin that if the binding was so sloppy the quilt wouldn't sell it was better to repair it. It was, after all, an event to raise money for charity.

"Was that you I saw with the stud-muffin at the coffee shop the other night?” Sarah asked Carla. “What was he doing with you?” she pressed on. “He's obviously not from around here."

So much for subtlety, Harriet thought. Jenny looked at her across the table and made a small shrugging motion.

"Well,” Sarah said. “Come on, spill."

For her part, Carla was beyond red-faced—she looked at her feet and stammered out, “Terry."

"What?” Sarah demanded.

"Let her be,” Connie ordered. She'd come in during the inquisition and had used her best grade-school-teacher voice—something even Sarah wasn't immune to. “Carla will tell us about her new friend when she's good and ready, and if that's never then you just leave her be."

Everyone around the table suddenly became very involved with their hand work, digging in bags, threading needles and otherwise avoiding looking at Sarah, Carla or anyone else.

"How is everyone doing with their costumes?” Connie asked after a few minutes. In her years of putting on plays at the grade school, she had learned a number of useful costuming tricks, such as making bloomers from two pillowcases in under an hour, and she'd shared her know-how with the group.

The discussion went around the table, each person reporting on the status of their Civil War outfit. The Threads had planned their costumes in advanced to insure that, as merchants, they would be appropriately dressed. Everyone had chosen accordingly, with the exception of Sarah. Even Lauren would look similar to the rest of the group. She had added some fine embroidery to her collars, but Harriet couldn't find fault with that.

Sarah, on the other hand, had made her dress out of black silk-like synthetic, complete with black collar and black apron. With her pale skin, all she needed was black eye shadow and red lipstick and she would blend right in with the goth kids who congregated around the corner from the high school on week days.

Harriet chuckled to herself.

"Okay,” Robin whispered to Harriet. “What was so funny?"

"Oh, just imagining Bebe and Sarah side-by-side."

Robin started laughing and had to go to the kitchen before anyone could ask her to say it out loud.

"Excuse me, chiquita,” Connie said as she squeezed past Harriet's chair and headed toward the door. “I've got to find some thread to match Carlton's vest."

She was barely out the door when Sarah spoke in a quiet voice.

"So, Carla, who was the hunk?” she asked again, and glanced nervously toward the door.

"His name is Terry,” Carla repeated without looking up.

"I got that the first time. I'm asking who
is
he?"

"Who he is, is none of your business,” Harriet said. “I thought Connie made that clear. Since you obviously didn't understand, let me say it in simple terms—back off. Who Carla sees is her business. And she certainly is under no obligation to tell you anything about it."

"Well, excuse me,” Sarah said. She broke eye contact and busied herself with her stitching. “I'm not sure who crowned you queen,” she muttered.

Harriet knew enough to not press the issue.

"Diós mio, that was delicious,” Connie said and pushed her chair back from the table. Robin had picked up sandwiches from The Sandwich Board, a deli a few blocks from the quilt store. To keep things simple, the restaurant had prepared three options: a Reuben-style sandwich made with turkey pastrami, Swiss cheese and homemade sauerkraut, a vegetarian option on seven-grain bread with herb cream cheese, avocado, tomato and cucumbers and a smoked turkey on sourdough with thin sliced gouda and baby lettuce.

"Stop hogging the cookies,” Lauren demanded. The Sandwich Board had sent along a tray of oatmeal raisin cookies that were still warm from the oven.

DeAnn pulled the plastic wrap from the tray and shoved it across the table. “Help yourself."

"Our visitors are due to arrive any minute,” Jenny said. “Everyone here has worked very hard to make this re-enactment a success. I know we're all stressed by all the last-minute preparations. We're in the home stretch. In a few days, this will all be a happy memory. Until then, could we please just hold it together?"

"Hello?” said an unfamiliar voice. “The lady out front told us to come in here."

"Hi, I'm Harriet,” Harriet got up and made her way to the door. She held her hand out to the woman who had spoken.

"Hi, I'm Sharon Davis,” The woman shook Harriet's hand. “This is Ellen and behind her is Inez. I spoke to you on the phone."

The three women were dressed in identical gray T-shirts with a handmade logo identifying them as the Confederate Quilter's Club and denim capri pants. Harriet introduced them to the Loose Threads.

"Welcome to Foggy Point,” Connie said. “Can we get you coffee, or tea?"

Inez held up a bottle of water. “No, thanks, we picked up waters on our way here."

Sharon and Inez, with their long gray hair wound into buns at the napes of their necks, appeared to be in their fifties. Harriet guessed Ellen was closer to her own age.

Jenny directed the women to the empty chairs she had pulled up to the table.

"I can't tell you how thankful we are to have you come early and check us out. None of us here has experience putting on a re-enactment of any kind. We've tried to follow all the rules the council forwarded to us, but we'll all feel better when someone who has actually been to one looks things over."

"We're happy to come help,” Inez said. “The fact that you're putting us up in a nice B-and-B tonight definitely sweetened the deal, but we would have come even without that.” She smiled warmly.

"I think you'll find re-enactors are like any other group of people you gather in one place,” Sharon said. “Most are really friendly and just want to have a good time. They're interested in history and the Civil War, but mainly they like having fun with their friends. And no matter what you do there will be critics—nothing you do will please them, and they're unlikely to help in any way other than making suggestions about how you can do something differently, usually a way requiring more effort. Unfortunately, there is also a third group, the troublemakers. They aren't around all the time, but they do show up among us every now and then."

"We've had a little trouble at the last few re-enactments we've participated in,” Ellen said. “Most recently it's been theft. Things have been stolen from tents during the major battles and quilts have been stolen—from tents, from the sutler's booth, even from unlocked cars."

"We mentioned that in one of our e-mails, so hopefully you've had time to address the security,” Sharon added.

"We hired a private security company to patrol all the populated areas. We asked for two in the sutler's area and one each in the two tent areas. In addition, we'll have someone in the parking lot,” Harriet said.

"That should help,” Sharon said. “We all try to look out for each other, but a determined thief is hard to stop."

Harriet sighed.

"Don't worry,” Inez said. “All you can do is take reasonable precautions and then whatever happens, happens."

"On a lighter note,” Sharon said. “We brought our quilting along with us.” Her lips curved in an impish smile. “I'll show you mine if you show me yours.” She pulled a piece of quilting from her bag. It was about a foot square with a pieced top, batting and backing held together with pins.” I'm doing a quilt-as-you-go project,” she explained. “I hand-pieced the top in block-sized pieces, and now I'm hand quilting it block by block. When the blocks are finished, I'll hook them together with sashing pieces. This way my quilting is not only more portable, but I can change the outcome right up until the last block is finished.” She held up the square she was working on. She had made four six-inch LeMoyne Star blocks from brown, red and beige Civil war reproduction fabrics, and had sewn them together to form the twelve-inch square.

Harriet pulled out her piecework. Mavis was trying to convince her of the joys of hand-piecing a quilt top; she was still playing with her stars-and-bars design. She didn't plan on hand-piecing the whole quilt, but she was going to at least make a few of the star blocks by hand just to try it out.

She'd chosen to start with Margo Krager's newest Dargate fabric line “Lavender and Mint” for her first block.

"I don't have much of a show-and-tell,” she said. “I just finished a quilt for the store and now I'm trying to do some hand-piecing."

"It might grow on you,” Sharon said. “We generally stick with hand-piecing or appliqué, since we can work on it during the re-enactment events."

"How critical are the other re-enactors about period authenticity?” Connie asked. “I've been making costumes, and I think the skirts and bodices I've made are accurate, but no one but the group gathered here have seen them."

"What Connie is trying to say, or would be if she wasn't beating around the bush,” Lauren said, “is that we have a couple of people who are way off the charts. The husband is in charge of this whole wing-ding and his bimbo of a wife is going to be dressed like a tart.” She looked expectantly at the newcomers. “Can we look forward to an ugly scene?"

"That's a terrible thing to say,” Connie scolded.

"It would be if she wasn't right,” Robin said and laughed.

Sharon looked at Inez, who nodded for her to go ahead.

"There will be a few thread counters who think nothing is right unless it's absolutely authentic,” she said. “They are so picky they even want the reproduction fabrics to have the same thread count as the originals. Fortunately, they aren't in any official positions. They mainly want to criticize everyone but without doing anything to help with the changes."

"Reminds me of someone we know,” Jenny whispered to Harriet, and they both concealed smiles behind their teacups.

"We were warned to expect thread counters in the sutler's area. Our consultant said as long as we posted a sign that said our goods were reproductions and not exact replications, we would be okay."

"That's good advice,” Ellen said. “That won't stop all the comments, but really it's only one or two people. I wouldn't worry about it."

"Good,” said Harriet. “That's one less thing. Did anyone see where Sarah went?” she asked the group as she stuck her needle into her fabric and put both items in her bag. “I need to get those quilts she mentioned."

"Or not,” Robin said.

"She
has
been pretty scarce lately,” Jenny said.

"We were supposed to go to dinner last week and she ditched me at the last minute,” Lauren said. “She said she had to go to Angel Harbor. She probably has a secret lover."

"Our Sarah?” Jenny asked.

"You're right,” Lauren said. “What was I thinking?"

Harriet thanked the re-enactors from Portland and arranged to meet with them the following day to inspect the event facilities, but not until they'd had a chance to thoroughly enjoy breakfast at their lodging.

Beth waited in the circular driveway in front of Harriet's bow window as Harriet pulled in and parked. “I like the new planter,” she said when Harriet was out of the car. She pointed to the cedar box that Harriet had added by the studio door. “I assume you still want to walk."

"I
need
to walk,” Harriet said. “Between the long hours on the quilting machine and the stress of dealing with all these crisis, my poor back feels like it's being twisted into a pretzel."

Foggy Point was a great place to live it you liked to walk. There were plenty of wooded trails, but Harriet's favorites were the paths that went along the water. The peninsula had rocky shores with little or no sand, so there weren't beaches as such, but there were pathways through the rounded water-worn stone.

"Let's go down to the water,” she suggested, and Beth agreed. “Do you mind if we drive over to the north side? I don't feel like walking from here."

"Whatever you want, honey."

Harriet drove back down her hill and through downtown Foggy Point. She was taking them to a beach along the strait side of the peninsula, just beyond the commercial docks.

"Well, what do you think?” Beth asked when they had parked and gotten out of the car. Harriet led the way toward the path. “Is everything ready?"

"With the exception of Sarah's last quilt or quilts, everything is done as far as the quilt booth goes. Connie gave me my costume, so I've got something to wear. Bebe came by and talked Connie into making Carlton a new vest. She didn't like the one Mavis made. She's insisting he wear pink to match her dress, so they will look like clowns. Other than that, things are great."

"At this point, the event is going to happen whether they have proper clothes or not, so I wouldn't worry about it,” Beth said. “I just met with the ladies at the Lutheran Church and they're all ready to do admissions. They have their tickets and cash boxes, and their schedule looked good—they have two people plus a spare for each park entrance."

"It's unfortunate Mavis had to be gone,” Harriet said. “There isn't really anything she needs to be doing, but I'd feel better if she were here."

"It seems strange the kids would insist on her helping out on such short notice when they know how involved she's been with this event."

"She said she'd be back in time for the re-enactment,” Harriet said.

"How are things with you and Aiden?"

"We had dinner the other night, but he had to go back to work."

"He kind of left in a hurry on pizza night, I noticed."

"Yeah, well, he's worried about Carla. We both are."

"We all want to help Carla, but she's been on her own for a long time and she's done a pretty fair job taking care of herself and that baby so far."