A Drunkard's Path (22 page)

 

 

 

 

“A
mazing,” Eleanor said. “I am amazed by these.” Kennette and I started the meeting Friday night with a little show-and-tell of the quilt tops we had finished. Kennette’s drunkard’s path was large enough to curl under for a nap and mine was a Christmas wall hanging, but they were both completed quilt tops ready to be made into quilts.

It was an accomplishment that for me had been months in the waiting.

“I’m not a junior quilter anymore,” I pointed out. “So is there some kind of ceremony? Maybe champagne?”

“It’s not actually finished,” Eleanor said. “It’s just a top. Lots of quilters make tops and then they sit unfinished for months.”

“Years,” Bernie agreed.

“Well not me,” I protested. “This gets done tonight.”

“Me too,” Kennette said. “Except I don’t know where to start.”

The group quickly divided into teams. Carrie and Natalie helped me baste my quilt, while the others worked on Kennette’s. Since they needed the large table in the classroom for their work, we stayed in the front and used the cutting table.

It gave me a chance to tell them both what I’d realized after Oliver’s class.

“Just when I want to like him, there’s something new that makes me suspect him,” Natalie said, shaking her head and glancing toward the classroom.

“I just wish something led us away from Oliver,” I said.

“But who would that lead us to?” Carrie asked.

Natalie and I looked at each other, and I could tell that we were thinking the same thing. It might lead us to the junior quilter in the other room, and none of us were happy about the idea.

“Hey, what are you talking about?” Susanne said a little too loudly, which I took as a warning that Eleanor and Kennette were on their way into the main part of the shop.

“We’re done!” Kennette held up her large, pinned quilt.

“We’re done with basting,” Maggie corrected her.

“I know,” Kennette said, smiling, “but I’m celebrating the process, like you told me to.”

Maggie laughed. “Then you’re doing a great job. Now you can celebrate quilting it.”

“Don’t get too far ahead,” Bernie said. “We need to figure out a pattern for each of our young quilters.”

I held mine up first.

“We don’t want the quilting to outshine the wonderful paintings you’ve done, so I think we should keep it simple,” Susanne said. As a quilt-show winner, Susanne was the one in the group that we deferred to on matters of design. “We should do a nice continuous line of holly leaves along the border and stitch in the ditch around each of the blocks.

“In the ditch I can do, I think,” I told her. In-the-ditch quilting is a simple straight stitch on the seam line. The quilting is practically invisible from the front, but it holds the layers together and doesn’t detract from the piecing.

“What do I do?” Kennette stood up and held her quilt up to Susanne.

“Allover,” Susanne declared quickly.

“Absolutely,” the others said as a group.

“Allover what?” I asked. I knew enough to know that an allover design meant one pattern across the entire quilt, whether it was a stipple or a specific design.

Bernie got up and walked as far from the quilt as possible. “Kennette is a fun, lively girl,” she declared. “We have to do something fun with this quilt.”

“Hidden messages,” suggested Carrie, jumping up.

“Yes,” Eleanor said, “but it can’t look messy.”

“We’ll do a series of loops and stars. That way it will be easier to add in Kennette’s name and whatever else we want,” Susanne said.

With that the women excitedly headed toward the sewing machines. It was like the start of the Indy 500, without the cars and the fireproof uniforms. Sewing machines were flipped on, bobbins were wound, and Kennette and I were pushed into chairs and told to hit the gas—or rather, in the case of the sewing machines, to step on the pedals.

“What do we do?” she whispered to me.

“I have no idea.”

“Nell, you just start sewing a straight line stitch right here.” Susanne pointed to a corner of quilt. “Follow it to the bottom and then over and up again until you have the blocks quilted down.”

“Then shout for help.” Bernie patted my shoulder reassuringly.

“And Kennette, dear,” Eleanor said quietly, “you’re going to free-motion quilt.”

“Which means we get rid of the feed dog.” Bernie pressed a button and the feed dog—the moving piece of metal under the needle that helps feed the fabric through the machine and assures even stitches—disappeared.

“What happens then?” Kennette said, frightened.

“Well, you put your hands on the quilt a few inches from the needle and guide the fabric, making stars and loops,” Natalie said. “You pretend you’re drawing, which should be easy for an artist. It looks really easy anyway.”

“Looks easy?” I said to Natalie. “Haven’t you done it?”

“No,” she gasped, her eyes wide. “It’s really scary to free-motion quilt. If you do it wrong, you end up with a cluttered front and big loops of thread on the back.”

Kennette got up. “I’m not doing that. I’ll ruin my beautiful quilt.”

“For heaven’s sake, Natalie. You’ve scared her.” Susanne shook her head and sat down in Kennette’s place.

She put her hands on the fabric and pressed the pedal. The machine started to whir, and Susanne’s hands moved in a slow and steady way, creating loops and stars just as she said. We watched in amazement as she quickly moved through the quilt, adding spark to an already lively design.

After about thirty minutes Susanne got up and stretched.

“I want to try,” Kennette said nervously. “You can always tear it out, right?”

Eleanor disappeared and came back with a scrap of muslin and a small piece of leftover batting. She cut the muslin in half and made a quilt sandwich.

“A practice quilt,” she said.

She put it down in front of another sewing machine, and Kennette, with Susanne’s hands on top of hers, started making quilt designs on the practice piece.

“This is really fun.” Kennette smiled. “Who knew it was so easy?”

“She’s like this in class too,” I said to Natalie. “She learns things in two seconds.”

“What are you doing sitting there?” Susanne noticed me watching Kennette quilt.

“I’m done with my straight line.” I held up my quilt to show her.

“Well then you need to do the holly.”

“I’m not Kennette,” I said. “No practice quilt is going to get me ready in five minutes.”

“Not a problem, dear. You let me help you,” Bernie said. She took my place at the machine and in twenty minutes had sewn a continuous line of holly leaves without once looking up.

“My quilt is finished,” I said, and then I knew I was wrong. “Except for the binding.”

“And the label. The label is crucial,” Maggie pointed out.

Though I knew there were several ways to finish the edges of a quilt, I went for the one that I’d seen most often. Known as a French binding, it’s really a long strip of fabric that is folded in half lengthwise, sewn to the front of the quilt, and then folded over the raw edge to the back. It puts two layers of fabric at the edge of the quilt, which, I was told, is the part of the quilt that gets the most wear.

I went to the cutting table and cut several two-and-a-quarter-inch-wide strips. With Carrie and Natalie reassigned to my team and helping, I sewed the strips together and then folded the newly formed long strip in half, lengthwise. After Carrie ironed the fold for me, I returned to the sewing machine. I sewed the raw edge of the binding to the raw edge of the quilt and then held up my really close-to-being-finished quilt.

“What now?”

“Hand sew the binding to the back,” Maggie said.

“But you’re on your own for that.” Carrie pointed to the clock.

It was, amazingly, nearly midnight. We had forgotten about the time, the killer, our love lives, and the rest of the world. We had, once again, gotten lost in quilting. And I was sad to see it come to an end.

And so, apparently, was Kennette. While I left my quilt to be finished after a good night’s sleep, Kennette opted to stay at the shop until she had quilted the rest of her drunkard’s path.

“This way I can write my secret messages.” She smiled.

“Maybe if we read the quilt, we’ll learn a thing or two,” Bernie leaned to me and whispered as we left Kennette behind.

“It may be our only choice,” I agreed.

I laughed as I said it, but I wasn’t sure I was kidding.

 

 

 

 

“Y
ou look pretty.” Kennette walked into my room just as I finished dressing for my date with Jesse. It had taken me three tries, but I was very happy with the patterned red wrap dress and tan boots I was wearing.

Kennette walked to my closet, ruffled through it for a minute, and held out a blue cardigan. “Is it okay?”

“Anything you want,” I told her. “Do you have a hot date too?”

She laughed. “I wish. I’m going over to Susanne’s for dinner. I think her husband is out of town, and she and Maggie are going to grill me.”

“Grill you?”

“That’s what she said. She wants to know everything about me.”

“They did the same thing to me when I moved here,” I said, trying to laugh it off. I silently hoped that Maggie and Susanne would be as successful getting Kennette’s story as they had once been getting mine.

“Can someone help me with this bracelet?” Eleanor walked in the room wearing a new turquoise dress.

“You look . . . Wow,” I said.

“Thank you, sweetheart.” She was beaming. “Oliver and I are just going for dinner. I’m sure we won’t be too late.”

Kennette helped Eleanor put on her bracelet then stepped back for a look. “You both look gorgeous. Jesse and Oliver are very lucky.” She grabbed the blue cardigan and a green floral skirt and headed out of the room.

Eleanor and I just looked at each other. “We’re lucky too,” Eleanor said.

“Because we have dates? I never thought you would say such a thing,” I jokingly scolded her. “You were always so independent.”

“I don’t mean the men. We have each other. We have Kennette.” She smoothed her dress. “We look really nice.”

I laughed, and in the same moment I felt tears rushing to my eyes. “I hope he makes you happy because I love you and I want . . .” I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.

Eleanor rushed over and hugged me. “What’s all this about? Honestly, such fuss over a new friend.”

We sat on my bed and held hands. “I’ve always been happy, Nell,” Eleanor said. “I’m just surprised that I enjoy Oliver’s company so much. I’m so used to Maggie and the girls that I forgot what it’s like to spend time alone with a man.”

“How do you like it?”

“I think I like it,” she said. “How do you like it?”

“You and Oliver?”

“Yes. I thought maybe you didn’t.”

“If he’s good to you then that’s enough.” Even as I was saying it, I wondered if it were true. “It’s just that you’re being so secretive.”

“I’m not being secretive,” she said defensively. Then she sighed. “Maybe I am. I don’t want you to think of me as a silly old woman.”

“That could never happen.”

Eleanor looked at me. “Fix your makeup,” she said. “Jesse doesn’t want to have dinner with a raccoon.”

“Our moment of sentimentality has come to an end, I take it.” I laughed.

Just as I spoke I heard the doorbell ring. Jesse wasn’t due for another half hour so I knew it had to be Oliver. Eleanor winked at me and left the room. I listened as my grandmother went down the stairs and opened the door. I heard them greet each other, and I heard Oliver spend a few minutes playing with Barney. When Eleanor left him to get her purse, I went down the stairs.

“Nell,” he said. “You look beautiful. I take it you have plans with Jesse.”

“He’s taking me to dinner.”

“Where? Do you know?”

“He didn’t tell me.”

“I’m taking your grandmother to a French restaurant near my home. It’s quite romantic, and the food is almost as good as hers.”

“Sounds lovely,” I said.

“Well . . .” Oliver seemed nervous. “Wherever you go, I know Jesse will be proud to show you off.”

“Thanks, Oliver.” I blushed a little at the compliment, but I only had a moment and I didn’t want to waste it. “I happened to walk into the gallery they’re putting together at school. I had a chance to take a long look at
Lost
. It’s amazing. Who was the model?”

“You are incurable,” he said, a smile creeping across his face. “Someone in England. Years and years ago.”

“Was her name Violet?”

Oliver blinked slowly but said nothing. Eleanor walked in with her coat and purse. Oliver took the coat from her and held it out. As she put her arms into the sleeves, he wrapped his arms around her.