The Double Cross (5 page)

“I’m Susanne Hendrick. And I’m very excited to be sharing the art of quilting with all of you.” Susanne smiled nervously at the start of class. “Journal quilts, like a written journal, are private expressions. You shouldn’t worry about what others will think, only what you wish to say. Use symbols, images, and objects that matter to you, even if they mean nothing to the rest of us. In my own quilts, I have found that I sometimes express quite private thoughts without meaning to, and I am always glad I did. I hope you’ll get caught up enough in your work that you’ll do the same. We will be making several small quilts this week. We’ll start with a quilt that expresses your view of what’s around you. To do this, you’ll go into the woods around the inn and look for inspiration. The second quilt will show something of your life now. And finally you’ll make a quilt that tells us a dream, a goal, or even a fantasy you have for your future.”

When she stopped talking, I waited for the class to show some excitement, but there was only silence. Susanne looked at me, concerned. I nodded to her to continue, looking as encouraging as I could.

“Each quilt will focus on a different technique,” she said, “but each will build on what we’ve learned. The point is to experiment and have fun. And by the end of the week, you will have not only a few quilts, but a whole new way of looking at quilting. Is everyone ready to get started?”

I looked out at the group of students that had been assembled. It wasn’t promising. Susanne seemed frozen by their lack of enthusiasm.

“Why don’t you introduce yourselves?” I suggested.

“I’m Helen,” a dark-haired woman of about fifty said. “I’ve tried my hand at quilting a few times but I don’t like to follow patterns.”

“You won’t have to follow them here,” Susanne said hopefully.

“Well, I like to buy crafts more than to make them, but I’ll try. George and Rita spoke very highly of you, and it would be nice to know if all those quilts I see at art fairs are really worth the price they charge for them.”

“And hopefully you’ll enjoy yourself,” Susanne said meekly. “And you are?” She turned to the attractive, middle-aged man sitting next to Helen.

“Frank Ackerman. Helen’s husband. I’m semiretired. I was the town druggist before that big-box store opened ten miles from here and stole my business,” he said. “George and I played poker last week and I lost. Said if I came to the class, I wouldn’t have to pay my debt.”

“Oh good God!” Susanne blurted out and turned to the two women at the next table.

“We’re Alysse and Alice,” one fortysomething, brown-haired woman said as she pointed to the identical woman standing next to her, identically dressed in blue jeans and a yellow shirt. “We’re twins. Both quilters.”

“Quilters for years. Traditional Quilts,” said her twin.

“We don’t much like the arty stuff but we’ll try it,” said the first.

I could see panic creep into Susanne’s eyes. She said nothing though. She just turned up the corners of her mouth in what, I assumed, she hoped would look like a smile. I waited for a moment, but when it was clear that Susanne was going to remain silent, I jumped in.

“What’s your favorite quilt pattern?” I asked.

The first twin shrugged. “All of them. All the normal ones that you see.”

I nodded. This was going to be a lot more work than I had imagined. “The great thing about Susanne’s techniques is you can take something traditional and add your own spin to it,” I said.

I pulled out a couple of Susanne’s sample quilts. One was a six-foot-square double cross—a seemingly complicated quilt pattern made up of squares and half-square triangles. The quilt, made in a variety of reds and whites, was actually Bernie’s, but Susanne had borrowed it to explain how it could be used as inspiration for an art piece. The second double cross was a variation Susanne had made, which included batik fabrics and was equally beautiful.

“See,” I said. “Tradition meets art quilt.”

“We have a quilt just like that.”

I turned to see George at the back of the room.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your class, but I wanted to stop in and see if anyone needed anything,” he said.

“You have quilts?” I asked. “Where did you get them?”

“I found them,” he said. “They were up in the attic. One is just like that red one you have there, only it’s mostly greens and blues. A bit stained but a nice quilt.”

“I’d love to see them sometime,” Susanne said.

“What are they worth?” one of the twins asked. “They are so lovely. They must be expensive.”

“Quilts sell for as little as fifty dollars and as much as five hundred thousand,” Susanne explained. “It depends on their age, the workmanship, the condition. But that’s really not what this class is about.”

“What about a quilt like that double cross?” one of the twins asked.

Susanne shrugged. “I don’t know. I made it a couple of years ago. Maybe a couple of hundred. If I were selling it.” Susanne turned back to George. “Did you remember to bring the collage from the entryway? I was going to show it to the students.”

George looked around. “I brought it here last night,” he said. “Left it right on your table.”

Susanne and I searched her table, at the front of the room, and the other students did the same at theirs, but nothing was found.

“Raccoons must have taken it. They’ll take anything, the little bandits.” George smiled. “Lot of them around here. Sorry about that.” He took a seat behind Helen and Frank. “I’m just going to watch, if that’s okay.”

Susanne nodded, then turned to the last person in the class, a man of about sixty. “Are you a quilter?”

“No, ma’am. But I’m a carpenter, so I am good with my hands. And I live next door, so I’ll be in class on time,” he said. He was sandy haired with a strong jaw and the look of a man who worked outdoors. “I’m Pete. I’ll probably be very bad at this, but I’ll do my best if you’re patient with me.”

“You’ll be fine, Pete,” George chimed in.

Pete laughed. “If it’s so easy, you join the class.”

The two men made a few jokes at each other’s expense, which Susanne and I enjoyed, but the twins sat stiff, Helen sighed, and, instead of joining in, Frank just seemed annoyed.

Susanne waited for them to stop joking, then smiled, quietly taking back control of the class. “The wonderful thing about this process is that there is no right or wrong. We’re just playing. All I ask is that you don’t focus on creating a masterpiece but instead focus on learning something new. There are many wonderful patterns out there, traditional patterns,” she nodded toward the twins, “but too often we rely on the patterns that others have made. They are tested. We know they will work. So I understand why it’s easy to want to follow them. What we neglect when we do, though, are the patterns we can create for ourselves. This class is a chance to do, not what we know we’re good at, but what we don’t know. It might be a bit scary, but I promise it’s a lot more fun.”

I looked around the room. I could see that the twins, Helen, Pete, and even George were all nodding their heads in agreement. Only Frank seemed unswayed. He checked his watch.

Susanne gave each student a small sketch pad and a pencil, and told them to go outside to look for something that might inspire them.

“Our first quilt is to express your feelings about the world around you. I find it helps to think small—walk outside and take a fresh look at things you pass every day. When you find something you like, draw it. Don’t worry about getting a lot of detail, just make a simple sketch,” she said. “Organic items are better than buildings for this purpose because the lines will not be straight. And if you want to draw a tree, for example, don’t stand far away. Don’t worry about getting the whole tree. Walk up to it, look up, look down. Find an interesting angle. Then draw what you see. And don’t worry if you think you can’t draw. The drawing is just a reference.”

“Why can’t we just bring cameras and work from photographs?” Frank asked. “I’m sure George has a digital camera I could borrow. Save the trouble of sketching.”

“You can. Of course you can work from photos,” Susanne said. “But I find that if people are nervous about their quilting skills, it helps to work from a sketch. If you work from a photo, you might be tempted to try and translate it too literally to fabric. But if you work from a sketch, you have already taken a step away from reality and it’s easier to take a second step as you move to fabric. Once you are more experienced, obviously you can save yourself the trouble of a sketch, if you prefer.”

As Susanne talked, I could see her relax. Good students or not, they were
her
students and she was going to teach them what she could. The only question was whether anyone in this odd group wanted to learn.

CHAPTER 6

As the class dispersed, I stood outside and enjoyed the quiet. On the path leading to the woods, I could see Frank and George engaged in what seemed to be a serious discussion, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Helen sat on a rock about ten feet from the men, and as I watched her, it seemed she was purposely staying close. When the men moved, she moved, but always keeping some distance. After a few minutes, George glanced over and saw me watching him. He moved back from Frank and loudly said something about the New York Yankees, then walked into the house. Frank turned toward the woods, walking right past his wife without acknowledging her. I felt a little bad for Helen, but I didn’t know her and for once my curiosity was not going to get the better of me. With nothing more to see outside, I headed back to the classroom to help Susanne set up for the next step.

“Have you seen the postcards I brought?” Susanne was searching her tote bag.

“The old-fashioned ones? They were by the ribbons.”

After an exhaustive search, we gave up. “They were antiques,” Susanne said. “It’s so strange.”

“Maybe the raccoons that took the collage took them,” I suggested. “Or maybe it’s ghosts.”

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if this old place was haunted.”

After about forty minutes, the students began trickling back in. Alysse or Alice—I couldn’t tell which—had made two sketches and her sister had made three. Like everything else about them, their sketches looked alike, yet they fussed about which sketch would make the best quilt and demanded Susanne’s attention. I floated around, and looked at what the others had drawn, until Susanne could pry herself away and explain the next step.

“The next thing is to take a piece of black felt,” Susanne said. “Everyone has a piece that’s twelve inches square. The felt will give your quilt some weight and be strong enough to hold the embellishments we’ll add later. Lay it flat on your table. Then, using your sketch as a guide, choose fabric that loosely represents the background in your sketch. Start with a few pieces and audition them, play with them, and if you like the fabrics, you can begin cutting them to represent the sky or grass or water in your sketch. Focus only on the background, and once we’ve done that, we’ll go on to the next part of the process.”

I admired the way Susanne explained the process. I’d made quilts with her before and knew she was a patient teacher, but she was also a very good one. She slowly broke down a very intimidating idea—making an art quilt—into steps that took the fear out of the process. She also walked around offering suggestions, praise, and encouragement, which gave me hope that even this group could be transformed into art quilters.

The students chose fabric to play with and they each set themselves up at a workstation. Perhaps
workstation
is too kind a word. Each person had a plastic folding table that was too low to be comfortable if they were standing and too high if they were sitting on one of the metal folding chairs. There were only two cutting mats and one rotary cutter, so I spent the morning running back and forth to Susanne’s car, where she had stored several of everything. Her overabundance of caution was now looking like good sense.

The twins seemed the most tentative about their projects. They took turns asking for Susanne’s advice, and one of them went back outside to make a new sketch after she’d decided she didn’t like anything she’d already drawn.

Helen, on the other hand, took to the process quite naturally. Her sketch of a tree next to a stream just a few yards from the classroom was quite detailed, but she seemed to be having an easy time as she turned the sketch into cloth.

“Doing okay?” I asked, though I could see that she was.

“I hope so,” she said. “This is really fun.” She moved several pieces of fabric over the felt, laying them flat, then pleating them, then discarding them and trying another. “I don’t often get much of a chance to focus on myself. I have six grandchildren.”

“That must keep you busy,” I offered.

I sensed that she wanted to tell me all about them, and I was right. After explaining why each child was special, she smiled. “They don’t get it from me.”