If any of their customers used the application in the shop that day, Karen, Margot, and Elspeth were too busy and preoccupied to notice.
There were more than a thousand bolts of fabric on the shelves of String Theory, and with all of their other Black Friday preparations still needing attention, they did not finish defending themselves against iFabricShop until Wednesday afternoon, minutes before they were scheduled to close early for the Thanksgiving holiday. They kept their tradition of joining several other local merchants at the Summit Pass Café for a pre-holiday-shopping-season lunch, but the mood was far from celebratory. Earlier that day, Karen had observed several unfamiliar browsers roaming the aisles with their cell phones in hand, and later Margot had discovered crumpled adhesive labels littering the floor beneath bolts of fabric whose bar codes had been newly exposed.
Evidently, their precautions were not enough.
Karen tried to put the unsettling developments out of her mind as she celebrated Thanksgiving, playing host to her mother and her in-laws. The next day, Black Friday, Nate kept everyone entertained and well-fed with leftovers as Karen worked a busy shift at the quilt shop. On Saturday, sales were as brisk as in previous years, but Karen had arranged to leave at noon so she could prepare for her trip to Elm Creek Manor.
“This is the worst possible time for me to be away,” she said, lingering behind the register five minutes after Nate and the others had expected her home. “I should cancel my trip.”
“You most certainly should not,” called Margot from the cutting table, where customers waited in a line three deep. “You deserve a vacation. You’ll come back rested, refreshed, and ready, and we’ll have plenty of work waiting for you, never fear. Now go, before Nate calls asking where you are.”
With a sigh, Karen left the register and went to retrieve her coat and purse from the office, where she found Elspeth working at the computer. Elspeth glanced up and smiled fondly when Karen entered, but she was obviously exhausted. “Heading out?”
“I’d better. I promised Nate I’d be home for one last family dinner before our relatives leave, and after that, I have to finish packing.”
Elspeth’s smile deepened. “I don’t think you ever leave work on time. You should.”
“You and Margot never do.”
“Hmm. You have me there.” Elspeth’s gaze shifted, became distant. “Years ago, we took early retirement from the university so we could open this lovely shop, our home away from home. We expected to work here until we retired for good, and recently—well, I suppose it won’t surprise you if I confess we were hoping you would eventually take it over.”
In truth, the confession surprised Karen utterly. “I’m honored that you’d place so much trust in me.”
“You’ve earned it. I only wish we could reward you accordingly. You deserve so much more than a week’s vacation.” Elspeth rose from her chair and gave Karen a hug that seemed somehow both affectionate and sorrowful. Then Elspeth released her, took a step back, and hesitated. “You once mentioned that you were a finalist for a faculty position at Elm Creek Quilts a few years ago, but they didn’t offer you the job because you lacked teaching experience.”
“That’s what they told me,” said Karen. “I’d taught introductory business courses when I was an MBA student at the University of Nebraska, but I’d never taught quilting.”
Elspeth regarded her steadily. “I think it would be a good idea if you let the Elm Creek Quilters know that you’ve filled in that gap in your credentials.”
“Why?” Karen studied her, worry stirring. “Why should I do that?”
“I think perhaps you need to—” Elspeth shrugged and shook her head, and if Karen didn’t know better, she would have thought she spotted tears glistening in her eyes. “Just be sure to let them know how qualified you are. You’re a wonderful quilting teacher. They ought to know that.”
Speechless, Karen nodded.
On the long drive home, Karen mulled over Elspeth’s words and came to one unmistakable conclusion: Elspeth believed that this time, the shop wouldn’t survive. She wanted Karen to keep her eyes open for a lifeboat rather than go down with the ship alongside her and Margot.
Karen blinked back tears and swallowed hard as she pulled the car into the garage.
She couldn’t bear the thought of String Theory going under. After all she had learned there, the friendships she had forged, the students she had inspired with her passion for quilting—the end couldn’t have come so soon. There had to be a way to keep the shop open, despite unfair competition and a lackluster economy. They had all worked too hard to revitalize Summit Pass for the place Karen loved best to shut its doors.
But what if Elspeth was trying to tell her that it was already too late?
* * *
It could not be too late, Karen told herself firmly as she helped Pauline remove her second quilt from the longarm frame. Together they rolled up the quilts and carried them back to the classroom, where they draped them over the table where Pauline usually sat.
“Are you all right?” Pauline queried as they climbed the grand oak staircase on their way to bed. It was nearly midnight, and although a few sewing machines still hummed industriously in the ballroom and a few campers remained chatting by the fireplace, the rest of the manor had fallen into a quiet and restful slumber.
“Just tired,” Karen replied. “Preoccupied with thoughts of home.”
They reached the landing, and as they parted ways, Pauline said, “Whatever it is, you’ll work it out. I have faith in you.”
Karen smiled. “You’ve only just met me.”
“Even so. I know.” Impulsively, Pauline hugged her. “Thanks for your help. Now, get some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
Karen hoped she was right.
* * *
As it turned out, Pauline was right, at least a little.
Margot and Elspeth had forbidden Karen to call the shop during her vacation, so upon waking, instead of picking up her phone, she stared up at the ceiling and wondered what the day would bring to all those she loved. Would more new visitors prowl the aisles, selecting fabrics to purchase from iFabricShop? Would Elspeth examine their accounts and find them dangerously close to empty? Would Margot believe that everything would be fine, even as they hung Going Out of Business signs in the window?
Not if Karen had anything to say about it.
She waited until she was fairly sure the boys would be awake before calling home. Nate sounded cheerful but harried, so she gave them all her love and bade them good-bye so he could get the boys to school and head off to campus. She showered and dressed and met her friends for breakfast—Belgian waffles with real whipped cream and cranberry-apple compote, sheer heaven.
And then she and the other students gathered in the classroom for their final Giving Quilt lesson.
After confirming that everyone in the class had finished quilting her Giving Quilt top—or tops, in Pauline’s case—Gretchen walked them through the process of creating the binding. First she instructed them to cut a large square of the same fabric they had used for their outer border. “Unless you want a contrasting binding,” she added after giving them the proper measurements and borrowing a piece of fabric from Pauline, who had volunteered one of her quilts for the demonstration. “That’s perfectly fine too. It’s an artistic choice you’re each free to make on your own.” She then demonstrated how to cut the square in half diagonally from corner to corner to make two identical triangles, which she sewed together to form an offset tube. Karen had made so many bindings in her brief, precious career at String Theory that she could whip one up almost without measuring, and she easily kept pace with Gretchen as she showed how to cut the asymmetrical tube into a long, narrow, bias binding strip.
Moving to an ironing station, Gretchen folded the long binding strip in half, wro
ng sides facing inward, and pressed it to fix the crease. “Doubling over the strip increases its durability,” she explained. “That’s important because the edges of a quilt—especially a quilt made for a child—experience so much wear and tear.”
She then carried the binding to the front sewing machine, where one of Pauline’s quilts waited, and as the students watched in the overhead mirror, she sewed the binding strip to the top of the quilt all around the edges, mitering the binding at the corners. Eagerly the students followed suit, invigorated by the sense that they were nearly finished, that they had accomplished so much that nothing short of a total power outage could prevent them from meeting their deadline.
Gretchen strolled through the classroom, lending a helping hand where needed, offering praise everywhere. When every student had completed the step, she returned to the front of the room. “Now you have a choice to finish binding your quilt either by hand or by machine,” she said. “I’ll teach you both methods, and you can use the one you like best.”
The first step was the same for both styles, she explained, showing them how to fold the binding strip over the raw edges of the quilt and pin it in place. “If you prefer to sew by hand,” she continued, “you can pin a few inches of binding at a time, blind-stitch or whipstitch the binding to the back of the quilt, and move the pins ahead of you as you go along.” She taught them both stitches, using thread that matched the binding fabric. Her needle moved slowly and meticulously through the bias strip and quilt backing without poking through to the top, and when she drew the thread all the way through, the binding lay flat and smooth against the quilt backing, the stitches nearly invisible.
“I personally prefer to sew my bindings to the back of the quilt by hand.” Gretchen sewed a few more inches before tying a knot, trimming off the trailing threads, and poking her needle into a pincushion. “If time is of the essence, however, you can also complete the binding by machine.”
Taking a full box of pins from her basket, Gretchen folded the bias strip over the raw edges of the quilt the entire length of one side and pinned them in place, mitering the strip when she reached the corner. “You should pin the binding in place on all four sides,” she said. “I’m doing only one because this is only a demonstration, and I think Pauline would like to finish her quilt herself.”
“No, that’s okay,” said Pauline. “Feel free to do as much as you like. For demonstration purposes, of course. Not because I’m lazy.”
Gretchen laughed along with the rest of the class as she slipped the edge of the quilt beneath the presser foot of her sewing machine. She aligned the needle with the “ditch” between the quilt top and the seam where the bias strip was attached to the front of the quilt, and sewed down the entire length of the quilt, removing the pins before they went beneath the needle. When she reached the corner, she backstitched, tied off the thread, and removed the quilt from the sewing machine. “If you’ve prepared your binding, pinned, and sewed properly,” she said, showing them the back of the quilt, “you’ll find that you’ve sewed through all of the layers and caught the edge of the binding on the back. If you’ve missed any small sections—and we’ve all made that mistake at one time or another—you can simply repin and resew those places.”
A murmur of excitement passed through the classroom, making Karen suspect that the binding-by-machine technique was new to even the more experienced quilters present. Several of her classmates were obviously eager to give it a try, judging by how quickly they dug into their tote bags and sewing baskets for their pins. Others, including Jocelyn, took out needles for hand sewing and carefully chose threads that best matched their bias strip fabric. The class was already dividing, Gretchen noted wistfully, an early herald of the end of Quiltsgiving, when they would all go their separate ways.
Like Gretchen, Karen too preferred to sew her bindings by hand, but instead of joining Jocelyn’s group around the back table, she carried her Giving Quilt to the seat in the front row beside Pauline, smiling at her new friend as she sat down and got to work.
She would finish binding her quilt more quickly if she used the sewing machine, and that would give her more time to help her classmates.
She couldn’t fix everything wrong in the world—for that matter, she could barely keep her own life sorted out—but she would help where she could, knowing that every stitch made a difference.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Giving Quilters
O n Saturday morning, Sylvia, Sarah, Maggie, and Gretchen woke early to prepare a special Farewell Breakfast for their guests, choosing one of their favorite menus from the recipe binder Anna had compiled for them before she moved away. The other Elm Creek Quilters arrived in time to help arrange the buffet table with platters of eggs baked in ham cups, raspberry-mocha crêpes, blintzes topped with smoked salmon and crème fraiche, Greek yogurt parfaits with almonds and dried cherries, whole wheat sunflower-seed bread, maple-cured bacon, and broiled grapefruit with vanilla-ginger sauce, as well as carafes of coffee, tea, and a variety of juices. The Quiltsgiving campers seemed to savor every bite and every last precious moment spent in the company of new friends.
After breakfast, Sylvia invited everyone to accompany her to the ballroom, where they had spent so many pleasant, industrious hours together. They gathered around the fireplace for another Elm Creek Quilts tradition, show-and-tell. Their mood was quiet and nostalgic, and Sylvia could read their thoughts on their faces: They missed their families back home, but Quiltsgiving had fulfilled their fondest wishes and exceeded every expectation, and they couldn’t bear to see the week come to an end. They were surely wondering whether they would ever enjoy another time such as this, another week full of perfect moments. Sylvia hoped they understood that they could return next Quiltsgiving, next summer, and every year thereafter if they wished, to find inspiration, respite, and opportunities for giving within the strong, gray stone walls of Elm Creek Manor.
After everyone settled down before the crackling fire, each quilter displayed the quilts she had made for Project Linus and shared her favorite memory of Quiltsgiving. Even their newest quilters proudly showed off the Giving Quilts they had created in Gretchen’s class and received well-deserved praise and encouragement. The stories each quilter shared of the moments she would cherish when their week together was but a memory sent the campers into gales of laughter and sometimes made them blink away tears.
“My favorite memory is reuniting with my sister, of course,” said Linnea after she held up a perfectly lovely Giving Quilt made in shades of blue, yellow, and very light cream, as well as a Girl’s Joy quilt in pretty pink-and-green florals.
“Mine too,” her sister Mona chimed in, showing off a Giving Quilt in adorable pastels—her very first quilt, if Sylvia was not mistaken, and a fine one at that.
Next the youngest quilter in the circle, the pretty blond student named Michaela, held up a Giving Quilt made in red, black, and white, which seemed to be her favorite color combination judging by her apparel and luggage. “My favorite part of this week, in addition to sewing quilts for the kids and making new friends, was starting my Giving Journal,” Michaela said. “I don’t think I’ve given enough thought to how I give to others throughout the day and how grateful I am for the people in my life. I’ve been keeping the journal for only a few days, but it’s already encouraged me to be more aware. I’m going to make it a lifelong habit.”
Sylvia caught Gretchen’s eye and gave her an approving nod. The Giving Journals were Gretchen’s idea, and they had caught on so well that Sylvia had considered making one of her own. Perhaps she should not wait until next Quiltsgiving to begin.
Pauline, the dark-haired quilter from Georgia, held up two beautiful quilts she had made in Gretchen’s class. “I fell far short of my goal of five quilts for the week, but I’m very happy with these two,” she said. “As for my favorite memory of Quiltsgiving, I’m going to copy Michaela”—the two exc
hanged a look and a laugh as if sharing an inside joke—“and say that making new friends is right up there. I also want to especially single out a particularly enlightening conversation I had with my new friend Karen.”
Sylvia gave Sarah a significant look across the circle, and Sarah returned a thoughtful nod. Throughout the week, they had overheard campers praising Karen’s helpfulness and generosity. The Elm Creek Quilters had compared notes as they prepared breakfast that morning, and all had agreed that Sylvia should speak with her alone before she departed. Pauline’s remark only strengthened Sylvia’s conviction that she and Karen ought to have a little chat.
Karen herself spoke next. “I’m very glad I returned to Elm Creek Manor to celebrate Quiltsgiving. I didn’t realize how much I needed a getaway. Now I feel rested, refreshed, and ready to go home and face the challenges awaiting me there.” She held up her Giving Quilt, a delightful, scrappy confection of primary colors. “As for my favorite memory, it has to be getting to know so many of you as we worked together. It reminded me anew of how much I love teaching, and collaborating, and spending time in the company of creative people working together for a common purpose. We can do so much more together than we can alone.”
All around the circle, her companions nodded, some regarding her thoughtfully, others turning their gazes inward, as if contemplating challenges in their own lives.
“This is my first quilt,” Jocelyn began, holding up a lovely Giving Quilt pieced from blue, orange, and light tan reproduction fabrics. “I have so many wonderful memories of this week that it’s almost impossible to single out one. For me, what’s more important than memories are the other things I’ll take home with me—new friendships and lessons learned.”
The Giving Quilt Page 29
