Quilt As Desired (3 page)

Harriet began to relax. They'd dispensed with the inevitable conversation about Steve, his untimely death and her resulting widowhood early in the conversation, with Avanell offering the usual condolences but not pushing for details.

Avanell then filled their lunch with stories of her own experiences with widowhood. She had raised three children who were now young adults. Her husband and brother had founded a vitamin distribution company at a time when America was just starting its love affair with supplements. Avanell's husband had died when her older children were in high school. With three sets of college tuition staring her in the face, she hadn't had a choice but to take his place in the company. She was self-effacing, but Harriet knew from her aunt that Avanell had turned the company from a modestly successful vendor of children's vitamins into a multi-million-dollar supplier of herbal supplements. Her natural cold remedy blend was taking the country by storm, and she was just introducing a line of herbal pet supplements.

Avanell was not only able to pay her children's college tuition, she also set up a scholarship fund that sent five deserving Foggy Point High School graduates each year to the college of their choice.

Harriet took advantage of Avanell's knowledge of the local residents and their buying practices. Avanell was more than willing to share what she knew about the other stitchers in the Loose Threads.

"Mavis Willis doesn't care a whit about competition. If she has a project that fits our theme for a particular show she enters it, but her main reason for quilting is to top the beds of her children and grandchildren with covers that suit their individual personalities,” Avanell said. “And you can pretty well count on Sarah Ness to ask you to do her project about two days
after
whatever deadline you set."

"Aunt Beth warned me about her. She said Sarah makes a lot of quilts and is willing to pay a lot of money to have them stitched, so it's worth the aggravation."

"That's the truth,” Avanell agreed. “She's on a mission to give everyone she's ever met a handcrafted quilt made with her own hands. She really cranks them out."

"Aunt Beth said something like that."

Avanell laughed. “I can imagine what Beth said. I'm sure the word
quality
was in there somewhere. Sarah's quite predictable, if you think about it. Your aunt Beth says that as soon as she hears Sarah's doing something for a show, she blocks out the last spot before the real deadline on her schedule and puts her name on it. Beth says she's never failed her yet."

Harriet laughed. The waiter brought the check, and Avanell had her wallet open and her card out before Harriet even had her purse open.

"Thank you,” she said. “Next time I'll treat."

"When you have yourself established as the new It Girl of machine quilters you can pay. In the meantime, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.” Avanell smiled.

She gave the waitress her card and was waiting to sign the receipt when a thin woman with long stringy hair and bad skin shuffled into the restaurant. The woman looked around and, when she spotted Avanell and Harriet, came over to the table.

"Can I talk to you?” she said to Avanell, and looked down. A line of sweat dampened her forehead.

Avanell's face lost its animation. “What's wrong now, Carla?"

Carla looked at Harriet and back to Avanell.

"It's all right, Carla. Tell me what's happening."

"Mr. Tony, he's got Misty in the office. He says she's been stealing vitamins and that's why we been missing inventory. He's called Sheriff Mason and says he's pressing charges."

"Is she stealing vitamins?” Avanell asked in a no-nonsense voice that was nothing like the friendly tone she'd used during lunch.

Carla looked at her feet. “Not exactly,” she said.

"Don't keep me waiting, Carla,” Avanell said. “Tell me the truth. All of it, now.” She signed the Visa receipt and picked up her purse and sweater.

Carla hesitated, looked at Harriet again and finally spoke.

"Misty is pregnant. Maryanne and me have been saving the broken and chipped prenatal blends for her. We just throw them out after we count them anyways. The sheriff is on his way now,” she finished.

"Go ahead and go,” Harriet said. “I'll just take advantage of this nice spring day and walk home. It isn't that far."

It was clear Avanell was torn.

"Really, I'm fine. The exercise will do me good after this lunch."

"Thanks, I'll make it up to you,” Avanell said and hurried after her employee, who was already shuffling out the door.

Harriet watched her leave. Aunt Beth was right; something was definitely wrong.

Harriet turned left toward Post Office Street. Pins and Needles was located around the corner and up the block. Aunt Beth had told her the previous store had been ten blocks down in a less prosperous part of downtown Foggy Point, but over the years had traded its way up as other, less enduring shops folded. Eventually, it moved into the coveted center-of-the-block location on Main Street that it currently occupied.

She looked at her watch. She still had an hour before her next customer was due to show up. She could spare fifteen minutes to see what was new.

"Hi, Harriet,” Marjory called from the back of the store. “Make yourself at home. I'll be with you in a minute."

A slender woman who looked to be around Avanell's age was at the counter.

"I'm sorry, I sent Marjory to search her new shipment to see if she got a maroon fabric I need. How are you surviving with Beth gone?"

Harriet wasn't sure she'd ever get used to the way news traveled in this town. The Threads probably knew Aunt Beth had left before she had—and she'd watched the taxi drive away.

She'd been a child when she first lived here with Aunt Beth. Back then, Foggy Point had seemed a wondrous place, filled with beaches to walk on, woods to explore and friendly neighbors who always had a warm cookie and glass of milk for an intrepid explorer. She had been unaware then of how everyone knew everyone else's business, leaving little room for privacy.

"I'm Jenny Logan,” the woman said when Harriet didn't offer any additional information. “I came late last week, so I didn't get to meet you. I'm bringing you my show quilt in...” She glanced at her watch.” ... not quite an hour."

"I'm on my way home now,” Harriet said. She turned to go back out.

"There's no need to rush,” Jenny said. “I'm going to look at the new fall fabrics Marjory got in. If I start now, I might get a Halloween wall hanging done this year."

"I'm on foot, though,” Harriet explained.

"Why don't you let me give you a ride, then? If you would, you could give me some ideas for this crazy baby cover I have to make. My son Mark and his wife just had a baby boy. They're both in school at Texas A&M and want a maroon-and-white quilt with black-and-grey trim. I'm trying to figure out how to use those colors and have it still look like it's for a baby."

Harriet and Jenny spent the next fifteen minutes carrying bolts of fabric to a table in the smaller of the two classrooms that adjoined the retail area of the shop. They finally came up with a plan that used three-and-a-half-inch squares surrounded by two-and-a-half-inch strips. Scrap quilts are a popular style that use many small geometric shapes cut from a large number of different fabrics, in imitation of the quilts made by pioneer women. By going for a scrappy look, they were able to incorporate more grey tones and even some pink to soften the contrast, but still maintain the Aggies’ color scheme.

They had just finished when Marjory returned from the staging area.

"Come here, child,” she said, and held her arms out for a hug.

Harriet allowed herself to be pulled to Marjory's ample bosom. She could remember the first time her own mother had hugged her. A photographer had staged it for a magazine article. It was supposed to show the warm side of the world-renowned scientist. Harriet had been eighteen and had been summoned to her parent's home when
Time
magazine came calling. She'd always wondered if hugs would have felt more natural if she'd been exposed to them at a younger age.

She had seen Marjory several times since she'd returned, and the woman had employed the same bear hug on each occasion, oblivious to Harriet's discomfort.

"I'm so glad you've come back to Foggy Point,” she said. “Your aunt Beth has been so worried about you."

Not so worried that she'd cancel her cruise to Europe, Harriet thought.

"I'm glad to be back, too,” she said, not sure if she was telling the truth.

"You two just missed your opportunity to bask in the glow of Foggy Point's newest celebrity,” Marjory said.

"Who would that be?” Jenny asked.

"Lauren Sawyer,” Marjory replied. “She got some little company to publish her cat designs."

Jenny made a noise that was halfway between a snort and a laugh.

"You know she's counting on winning the overall competition at the Puget Sound Stitcher's Quilt Show,” she said.

"She needs to,” Marjory said, “She doesn't have the money to take out ads on her own. She's counting on a lot of free publicity when she does win."

"Are her designs that good?” Harriet asked, thinking of the intricate and unusual quilt Avanell had left with her that morning.

"You can judge for yourself,” Jenny said. “I'm sure she'll be working on it tomorrow at our Loose Threads meeting. You are coming, aren't you?"

Aunt Beth had taken Harriet to the Loose Threads before she left for her cruise. People had been friendly enough, but she found it difficult not to feel like an outsider. Everyone talked about people and places that were foreign to her. And at the two meetings she'd attended with Aunt Beth, the group had treated her like she was made of spun sugar. As if one wrong word would cause her to dissolve.

"I guess so,” she replied. “Sure."

Aunt Beth had reminded her that the Foggy Point quilting community was a small one, and she needed to keep herself visible if she expected to be the machine quilter of choice for the Loose Threads. She had also urged her to be the quilt depot for the upcoming Puget Sound Stitcher's show. Puget Sound was a regional show. Bigger ones were juried, which meant that competitors had to submit pictures and descriptions of their entries for screening before they were allowed to compete. For the Puget Sound show, anyone could display their quilt as long as they paid the fee and filled out a form. As the depot, Foggy Point quilters would drop off their submissions at Harriet's studio, and she would transport them to the staging area in Tacoma. After the show, she would bring the quilts back, and people would collect them from her.

This way, she would meet everyone in her area who was submitting, not just her customers. And, as Aunt Beth had pointed out, she could keep tabs on who else was long-arm quilting in the area.

She believed it was a smart business move, but she also knew Aunt Beth was worried about her and was trying to force her to get out and meet people. She didn't need to worry. Harriet didn't plan to be here long enough to need new customers, and she sure didn't need friends.

Marjory cut Jenny's fabrics, rang up the total and punched Jenny's Needle Points card. Jenny was one purchase away from filling her card, which would entitle her to twenty dollars in free fabric or notions. Harriet purchased two of the square-cut quarter-yard pieces known in the quilting world as fat quarters and received her first punch on her own card.

"I'm parked around the corner,” Jenny said, and held the door for her.

Jenny parked her BMW sedan in Harriet's circular driveway and carried her quilt into the studio.

"This isn't as fancy as Avanell's,” she said.

"It doesn't have to be fancy. I've seen a number of blue ribbon winners that were well executed traditional patterns. Workmanship and color choice make a big difference in a quilt."

"Avanell's are always well crafted
and
fancy,” Jenny countered. “Who would have thought to combine trapunto with traditional pieced blocks and then hand-dye the fabric to boot?"

"It is a nice quilt,” Harriet admitted.

"Lauren's nuts if she thinks anything she designed would outshine Avanell's work."

"I've never seen Lauren's."

"When you do, you'll see what I'm talking about. She has potential, but she just hurries too much, and she doesn't understand where the boundaries are between being inspired by someone's work and outright copying. Your aunt tried to explain to her that she couldn't trace pictures out of children's books and then sell them as her own patterns, but she doesn't understand."

"I hope she doesn't ask me to stitch anything like that,” Harriet said.

"You won't have to worry—she does her own quilting on her home sewing machine. You're the quilt depot, aren't you?"

Harriet nodded.

"You'll get to see it then even if she doesn't come to Loose Threads. Check it out when you do—you'll see what I mean. Avanell would have to keel over dead for Lauren to have a chance, and even then it wouldn't be certain."

"Let's have a look at yours,” Harriet said. She didn't want to be forced into taking sides before she'd even met Lauren.

Jenny's quilt was a simple double-four patch set on point. The basic form was four squares of fabric arranged to make a square. In a double-four patch, two diagonal squares were themselves made up of four smaller squares. She'd chosen a rich berry-toned floral as the focus fabric then combined it with pistachio and antique green batiks with a touch of dusty rose hand-dyed cotton. It was a queen-sized bed cover and was destined for the guestroom in Jenny's house after the show.

"This is very nice,” Harriet said. “Have you thought about what style of stitching you want on it?"

"Well, I've toyed with the idea of putting smallish feather patterns continuously in the sashing and then just having parallel lines in the four patch blocks. I'm not sure, though. I would rather have the double four patch blocks as the focus."

On a quilt, sashing pieces were the rectangles of fabric used to frame the main blocks. Harriet had seen a lot of them where the designer had intended the sashing to enhance the pattern but in fact it had done just the opposite. In Jenny's quilt, though, it definitely added to the overall effect.