The Quilter's Apprentice

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  “Don’t say that. You know that isn’t true. If you had no hope, you wouldn’t have asked me to find a way to bring Elm Creek Manor back to life.”

  “I think I know when I’m feeling hopeful and when I’m not, young lady.” But the pain in her eyes eased.

  Sarah squeezed her hand. “I’m glad this block is in my quilt.”

  “I’m glad, too.”

  By the end of the week Sarah finished the Chimneys and Cornerstones block, and then all twelve blocks were finished.

  On Monday Sarah prepared the blocks for assembly into the quilt top.

  “Don’t slide the iron around like that. Just press,” Mrs. Compson cautioned as Sarah ironed the seams flat. “If you distort the blocks they won’t fit together.”

  As Sarah handed her the neatly pressed blocks, Mrs. Compson measured them with a clear acrylic ruler exactly twelve and a half inches square. Each of Sarah’s twelve blocks was within a sixteenth of an inch of the intended size.

  “Fine accuracy, especially considering this is your first quilt,” Mrs. Compson praised her. “You’ll be a master quilter yet.”

  Sarah smiled. “I have a good teacher.”

  “You flatterer,” Mrs. Compson scoffed. But she smiled, too.

  To Sarah’s surprise, Mrs. Compson announced that their next step was to clean the ballroom floor. “Or at least part of it,” she added. She took a battered vacuum cleaner from the hall closet and gave it to Sarah, while she carried the twelve sampler blocks.

  Mrs. Compson had mentioned once before that the ballroom took up almost the entire first floor of the south wing, but Sarah still took in a breath as she looked around the room. A carpeted border roughly twenty feet wide encircled the broad parquet dance floor, which still seemed smooth and glossy beneath a thin coating of dust. Above, a chandelier hung beneath a ceiling covered with a swirling vinelike pattern made from molded plaster. At the far end of the room was a raised dais where musicians or honored guests could be seated. In the far corner, a large object—a table, maybe, with chairs on all sides—rested beneath a dusty sheet. Rectangular windows topped by semicircular curves, narrow in proportion to their height, lined the south, east, and west walls.

  Mrs. Compson moved from window to window pulling back curtains, but the drizzle outside permitted little light to enter. She went to a panel in the far corner, flicked a switch, and gave the chandeliers a challenging look. The lights came on, wavered, and then shone steadily, casting shadows and sparkling reflections to the floor below.

  After Sarah vacuumed a small portion of the carpet, she and Mrs. Compson arranged the blocks on the floor in three rows of four, then stood back and studied them.

  “I think I want the Schoolhouse block in the middle instead,” Sarah said, bending over to switch two of the blocks. “And the Lancaster Rose next to it. Since it’s more complicated I want to show it off.”

  Mrs. Compson chuckled. “Spoken like a true quilter. Then you can place the two blocks with curved piecing opposite each other, here and here. And since you have three star blocks, and another that resembles a star, you can put them in the corners like this . . .”

  They spent half an hour arranging and rearranging the blocks until Sarah was satisfied with their appearance. In the upper-left-hand corner she placed the Ohio Star block, with the Bachelor’s Puzzle, Double Nine Patch, and LeMoyne Star blocks completing the row. The middle row held the Posies Round the Square, Little Red Schoolhouse, Lancaster Rose, and Hands All Around blocks. The Sawtooth Star, Chimneys and Cornerstones, Contrary Wife, and Sister’s Choice blocks made up the bottom row.

  “I don’t think this is going to be big enough for a queen-size bed,” Sarah said.

  “Don’t worry. We’re a long way from binding it yet.”

  “If I make any more blocks, I’ll never finish the quilt in time.”

  “Oh, we’ll contrive something.”

  “Like what? You mean the setting? That should make it bigger, but not by much.”

  “Not the setting. You just let me worry about that,” Mrs. Compson said, and Sarah couldn’t persuade her to say anything more.

  They left the blocks in place and returned to the west sitting room, where Mrs. Compson showed Sarah how to make a Garden Maze setting. They began by making three templates: a small square, an even smaller triangle, and a narrow rectangle that tapered off to a point on both ends. To save time, Mrs. Compson traced the pieces—the tapered strips from the cream fabric and the other two shapes from the darkest blue—while Sarah cut them out. Sarah simply used her ruler rather than making a template for the narrow, dark blue pieces Mrs. Compson called block border strips.

  Sarah sewed the hypotenuse of each small triangle to a tapered edge of the longer strips; when four triangles were attached, pieced sashing strips fourteen inches in length were formed. Meanwhile, Mrs. Compson sewed the dark block border strips around the edges of each block. They worked for the rest of the afternoon, and when it was time for Sarah to leave, Mrs. Compson told her to go ahead and leave everything where it was.

  Sarah took in the fabric scraps, snipped threads, and quilting tools of all kinds scattered wildly around the room and had to laugh. “If you can live with this mess, I guess I can,” she said as she left.

  At home, Matt went to check the mailbox while Sarah went inside to study the cupboard shelves and try to figure out what to make for supper. When he returned he tossed her a thick beige envelope. “Something came for you.” He leaned against the counter and watched her.

  The return address announced “Hopkins and Steele” in bold blue lettering. Sarah tore open the envelope and scanned the letter.

  “Well? What do they say?”

  “They’re offering me the job.”

  Matt let out a whoop and swung Sarah up in his arms. Then he noticed he was the only one celebrating. “Isn’t this good news? Don’t you want the job?” he asked as he set her down.

  “I don’t know. I guess so. I mean, I thought I did, but—I don’t know.”

  “You want to stay with Mrs. Compson.”

  “Would that be so bad? You were the one who got me started working there in the first place, remember?”

  Matt grinned and held up his palms in defense. “If you want to keep working at Elm Creek Manor, that’s fine by me.”

  “It’s fine by me, too, unless Mrs. Compson decides she doesn’t need me anymore after we finish cleaning the place. I’m surprised I still have a job now, since the whole point of it was to help prepare the manor for sale.”

  “Maybe she likes having you around.”

  “She doesn’t have to pay me for that.” Sarah went into the adjoining room and slouched into a chair, spreading the letter flat on the table.

  Matt took the opposite chair. He turned the letter around and read it. “They want you to respond within two weeks.”

  “That’s two weeks from the date of the letter, not from today.”

  “Either way, you don’t have to decide this minute. Take some time to think about it. Talk it over with Mrs. Compson, maybe.”

  “Maybe.” Sarah sighed. Every day seemed to bring a new and more pressing deadline.

  Twenty-Six

  That week Mrs. Compson and Sarah spent their mornings finishing up the south wing’s bedrooms and used their afternoons to finish piecing Sarah’s quilt top. They sewed blocks and sashing strips together to make the three rows, then they fashioned four long sashing rows by alternating sashing strips with the two-inch squares. When the block rows were joined to the long sashing rows and then to each other, the sampler’s garden maze setting was complete.

  Thursday came and went, and once again Sarah went to the Tangled Web Quilters’ meeting alone.

  On Friday, Mrs. Compson instructed Sarah to cut long, wide strips from her background fabric and attach these borders to the outside edges of her quilt. Sarah’s shoulders and neck ached from hanging curtains all morning, and sitting at the sewing machine didn’t help. Their anniversary was quickly
approaching and she hadn’t even started the quilting yet.

  Behind her she heard the cedar chest opening and the rustle of tissue paper. “Sarah?” Mrs. Compson asked.

  “Just a sec. I’m almost finished with the last border.” Sarah backstitched to secure the seam and clipped the threads. “There.” She removed the quilt top from the machine and brushed off a few loose threads. “I still don’t think it will be big enough. Almost, but not quite.”

  “Maybe this will help.”

  Sarah turned in her chair. Mrs. Compson was spreading four long strips of pieced fabric on the sofa.

  “What are those?”

  “Oh, just a little something I’ve been working on in the evenings after you leave. Did you think I just sat around all night waiting for you to return in the morning?”

  Sarah rose for a closer look. “This looks like my fabric.”

  “That’s because it is your fabric.”

  Sarah held up one of the pretty quilt tops, if that’s what they were. Maybe they were table runners. There were two long and two shorter pieces, all with the same pattern of parallelograms and squares on background fabric.

  Then Sarah remembered. “These look like the twisted ribbon borders we saw at the quilt show.”

  “You seemed to admire the pattern, and I thought it would suit your sampler.” Mrs. Compson hesitated for a moment before hurrying on. “But only if you want them. I took the liberty of making them for you so that you could have the large quilt you wanted, but you don’t have to use them.”

  “These are for my quilt? Really?” Sarah snatched up her quilt top and held it against the border, trying to see how the finished product would look. “Thank you so much.”

  “You don’t have to use them, mind. Maybe you wanted the whole quilt top to be made by your own hands. I can understand that. Don’t think you have to sew them on so you won’t hurt my feelings.”

  “Are you kidding? I’m sewing them on right now and you just try to stop me.”

  Mrs. Compson smiled in response. Soon Sarah finished attaching the twisted ribbon outer borders, and she held up the finished quilt top for inspection. “What do you think?”

  Mrs. Compson picked up the other edge of the quilt. “It’s lovely. You’ve done well.”

  Sarah studied the quilt top. “I can’t believe I made this—except for the border, I mean.”

  “Believe it. But it’s a long way from finished.”

  “What’s next?”

  “Now we need to mark the quilting designs.” Mrs. Compson rummaged around in her tackle box and produced a pencil.

  Sarah clutched the quilt top to her chest. “You want to draw on my quilt? I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  Mrs. Compson rolled her eyes heavenward. “She makes one quilt top and now she’s the expert.” She reached out for the quilt top. “Will you relax, if you please? I’ve done this before.”

  Sarah handed it over. “Okay, but . . . be careful.”

  They spread the quilt top on the table and pulled up two chairs. Mrs. Compson handed Sarah the pencil and told her to give it a closer look. As she did, Mrs. Compson explained in a very patient voice that this was a fabric pencil, not a typical Number 2, and if the marks were made lightly they would wash out later. She then explained how to mark the quilting designs on the quilt, either by using a stencil or by slipping a printed pattern from a book or a magazine beneath the fabric and tracing it. They used dressmaker’s chalk instead of pencil on the dark fabrics.

  Sometimes the quilting designs were simple, like the straight lines a quarter inch away from the seams called outline quilting. Others were more complex, especially where they had open space to decorate, but to Sarah’s relief none were as complicated as those she had seen on Mrs. Compson’s quilts. She wasn’t sure that she was ready for anything so difficult.

  At the end of the day Sarah decided to take the quilt top home and finish tracing the designs over the weekend.

  “That’s fine,” Mrs. Compson said. “But don’t you think Matthew will notice?”

  Sarah frowned. She wanted the quilt to be a surprise, but she was running out of time.

  Mrs. Compson patted her on the shoulder. “I’ll work on it. I don’t know if I’ll have it finished by Monday, but I’ll do my best.”

  “I don’t want you to go to so much trouble.”

  “Trouble?” Mrs. Compson laughed. “I haven’t had so much fun in I don’t know how long. It’s nice to feel a part of things again.” She ushered Sarah outside to wait for Matt so that he wouldn’t walk in on them and see the quilt spread out on the table.

  All weekend long Sarah’s thoughts kept returning to Elm Creek Manor. She couldn’t shake the feeling that her time for finding a way to bring Elm Creek Manor back to life was rapidly running out.

  Unfortunately, Matt meant well but was little help when it came to finding a solution. He couldn’t understand why anyone would never speak to her family again just because she didn’t get to be matron of honor at some old wedding. And even if Mrs. Compson was still holding a grudge, her sister was gone, so why stay angry? “You don’t see guys acting like that,” he concluded, shaking his head in bafflement.

  “You’re missing the point,” Sarah told him. “Think of everything she’d been through. She was angry at Claudia and Agnes for shutting her out, but she was even angrier at herself for needing them. She left instead of facing up to all the pain. I can understand why she left, but she sees it as abandoning her responsibilities.” Then suddenly she understood. “That matron of honor business—that didn’t mean anything. They fought about that because they couldn’t fight about what was really hurting them—their loss, their rivalry. It was too painful to face.”

  Matt studied her. “Sort of the way you and your mother fight about her boyfriends.”

  Sarah stiffened. “It’s not the same thing.”

  “Well, sure it is, if you look—”

  “It’s not.”

  “Okay, okay.” Matt backed down. “You know your mother better than I do.”

  “We’re talking about Mrs. Compson, not about me.”

  “If that’s the way you want it.”

  Sarah’s thoughts churned. She didn’t want to think about her mother, couldn’t afford to spend a moment there when her time for saving Elm Creek Manor was dwindling so rapidly.

  Then, suddenly, an image flashed into her mind, an image of herself as an old woman cleaning up her childhood home, sorting through her dead mother’s things, still wrestling with anger and resentment and pain, forever denied reconciliation.

  One day Sarah would be as angry and alone as Mrs. Compson.

  Suddenly fearful, she flung the image from her mind.

  By Monday morning she felt no closer to a solution. Worsening matters was the Hopkins and Steele letter, a persistent reminder that other deadlines were closing in. As Sarah and Matt drove to work, Sarah found herself looking forward to her quilting lesson later that day. Not just looking forward to it, she suddenly realized, but needing it. Tangled, anxious thoughts relaxed when she felt the fabric beneath her fingers and remembered that she was creating something beautiful enough to delight the eyes as well as the heart, something strong enough to defeat the cold of a Pennsylvania winter night. She could do these things. She, Sarah, had the power to do these things.

  Sarah knew Mrs. Compson recognized the power of quilting, too. Quilting certainly seemed to bring Mrs. Compson’s joy to life; maybe it could do the same for Elm Creek Manor. If Mrs. Emberly was one piece of the puzzle, maybe quilting was the second.

  A vague shadow of an idea began to form in Sarah’s mind as the truck pulled up behind Elm Creek Manor.

  Mrs. Compson had finished marking all but a small portion of the quilt top, and she was completing that section when Sarah walked in.

  “Did you remember to buy the batting and backing fabric like I told you?” Mrs. Compson asked, pausing long enough to peer at Sarah over the rims of her glasses.

>   Sarah nodded and showed her the Grandma’s Attic bag. “And the fabric’s washed and pressed, as ordered.”

  “Good girl.” Mrs. Compson set down the pencil and removed her glasses. “Now it’s time to prepare the quilt layers.”

  “I’ve done that part before, and I was thinking—”

  “You’ve done this before?”

  “Yes, with the Tangled Web Quilters. And that’s who I wanted to talk to you about. I was thinking—”

  “You never told me you’ve used a quilt frame before. This is indeed a surprise.”

  Sarah opened her mouth to speak, but then Mrs. Compson’s words registered and she forgot what she was going to say. “Quilt frame?”

  “Yes, of course.” She folded the quilt top and draped it over her arm.

  “Oh.” Sarah frowned. “I thought you were talking about basting the quilt sandwich.”

  “With this quilt frame you don’t need to baste, thank goodness. Life’s too short to baste a quilt if you don’t have to. Bring the bag.” She turned and beckoned Sarah to follow.

  Sarah hurried to catch up as Mrs. Compson walked to the ballroom. “Basting goes fast if you have lots of people to help. And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “What did you wish to say?”

  “I was thinking that maybe this weekend we could invite the Tangled Web Quilters over for a quilting party. You know, like you used to have here? They could come over Friday after work and we could quilt and get a pizza or two, and they could spend the night, and then we could finish up on Saturday.”

  Mrs. Compson looked doubtful.

  “Don’t say no, Mrs. Compson. It would be a lot of fun. And I only have a little more than a week to finish the quilt in time for our anniversary.”

  Mrs. Compson stopped with her hand on the ballroom door and eyed Sarah suspiciously. Then her face relaxed. “A quilting party, you say?”

  Sarah nodded.

  “Sounds more like a slumber party to me. Aren’t you a little old for slumber parties?”

  Sarah shrugged and gave her a pleading look.