Quilt As You Go

“Thank you for your efforts. Give your quilts to DeAnn or Robin, and they'll record them and get them hung up at the booth.'

She had been warned by the re-enactment consultant the Foggy Point Business Association had hired that some of their guests would be what were referred to as “thread counters'-people who obsessed over the authenticity of everything to the point of counting the threads per inch in all the fabrics used for uniforms, civilian clothing, bedding and supplies, checking to be sure they were true to the time period. The consultant recommended clearly labeling any items already known to be less-accurate copies from the period. He suggested phrases like “in the style of the Civil War period.'

He had assured them that all types of history buffs showed up, and there would inevitably be family members of the hardcore re-enactors who would welcome the chance to shop for more contemporary items. As long as the majority of what was offered in the sutler's area were sincere reproductions, he was sure they would have a successful event.

'Does anyone have any questions?” Harriet asked before returning to her place at the big table the Loose Threads were clustered around. Normally, meetings were informal gatherings, with people drifting in and out as their schedule allowed or their project required. They met in the larger of two classrooms in Pins and Needles.

'Are we interrupting anything?” a stout, slightly balding man said from the doorway. He didn't wait to for an answer but came through the door and took the position Harriet had just vacated at the head of the table. A young, heavily made-up woman in a short pink skirt, silver tank top and pink alligator boots followed and stood by his side, a bored look on her face. Her long bleached hair was held up on her small head with a large silver plastic clam shell clip.

'We wanted to check and see how you gals were doing with the quilts for your booth. You know the quilt store is one of the most important booths in our whole vendor area.” He made a grimace that was his version of smiling and directed his attention to Harriet, walking to her side of the table and sitting in the chair next to her. “Did you find vendors for the last three booths?'

He leaned eagerly toward her; the heavy gold chain he was wearing looped out through the open neck of his pink shirt. Harriet sat as far back in her chair as she could without being obvious.

As president of the Foggy Point Business Association, it was Carlton Brewster's job to organize the re- enactment. Since the association had agreed to hire a consultant, there weren't many jobs left for him to personally carry out, filling the sutler's area being his major one.

'Yes, they're filled. I got a candlemaker from Port Townsend who will do wax dipping demonstrations four times a day and will have candles for sale also. The knitting group that meets at the Lutheran church will sell handmade shawls as well as socks, hats and scarves. Luckily, they all had items they'd already made for a church sale that are historically acceptable, and they'll each turn out a few more items before the event. And for the last booth, the folk art school in Angel Harbor will set up a mini-bazaar like the women's aid societies ran to raise money for the war. They'll sell a variety of things-tobacco pouches, pin cushions, little sewing kits, children's toys, stuff like that.'

'Well, good,” he said. He clapped her on the back, causing the tea in the cup she'd just picked up to spill onto the table. “Seems like you have the sutler's area taken care of.” He turned to his wife. “Bebe and I were just heading over to the country club. We figured people in Civil War times probably spent more time outdoors then we do. After spending all that money to make sure we have realistic costumes, we figured we better make sure our tans are up to snuff.'

Harriet looked at Bebe, whose given name was actually Barbara. If she got any more tan her well-oiled skin was going to look like a piece of burnt toast.

'We wouldn't want that,” she said.

His job for the day done, Carlton took Bebe by the arm and left.

Connie Escorcia got up and went to the bathroom, returning a moment later with a handful of paper towels. She glanced toward the door to make sure Carlton and Bebe were gone.

'Dios mio!” she exclaimed. “How dare he come in here with that… that…” She broke into rapid-fire Spanish even Harriet couldn't follow, but which apparently referred to Bebe, and not in a good way, either. Connie was a retired teacher and, at five foot even, made up for her diminutive size with her larger-than-life Latina personality. “He dumped all his jobs on you so he can go sit at the pool with her?'

Harriet picked up her quilt, a scrappy design made up of eight-pointed stars and rail-fence blocks, which were squares made from three equal-sized fabric strips of different colors or patterns. Like Lauren, she was hand- stitching the binding onto the edge.

'Somehow, when I agreed to take over Aunt Beth's quilting business, I didn't realize I was also agreeing to this whole business association hoo-ha.'

'You're really good at it, though,” Jenny offered. She was a slender, fiftyish woman whose sleek, shoulder- length hair was never out of place. Her taste in quilting normally ran to large pastel floral designs with a blended, low-contrast look. To her credit, for the re-enactment she was making a coverlet with roses and plumes cut from red, pink, yellow and green solids and appliqued onto an off-white background. A ribbon of green stems with stylized rosebuds circled the rose blocks, forming a border. Jenny was still appliqueing the rosebuds and had arranged with Harriet to machine-quilt it as soon as it was done.

'You're definitely more competent than Carlton,” DeAnn said. “If he was actually doing the job, he'd be making a mess of it, so we're better off with him sitting by the pool with the bimbo.'

'DeAnn's right,” Robin added. “The extra work he would have created would have been much worse to deal with.” Robin taught yoga, and believed most problems could be solved with a few cleansing breaths and a stretch. If she condemned Carlton 's management skill, Harriet had to believe it was bad.

One by one, the women around the table pulled their finished quilts from bags, or fetched them from their cars and stacked them in front of Robin and DeAnn for pricing and labeling. For their part, the two women had made three quilts together, sharing cut strips in shades of blue to make several variations of the Irish Chain Pattern.

Harriet was pleased to see the growing stack of quilts. Going into this event, she'd been concerned about asking the group for such a large commitment of time and resources. She was once again impressed by the willingness of the people in her new home town to pull together no matter what the cause. It didn't seem to matter that the current economy was tough-everyone in the group had donated at least one quilt, and most of them had contributed more than one.

'Honey, could you give me a ride home?” Mavis asked Harriet as she snapped her cell phone closed. “I dropped my car off for an oil change, but of course, Henry found a cracked hose and that worried him, so he wants to change all the hoses and he doesn't have time to finish it tonight.'

'Sure, no problem,” Harriet said. “I'll be done in a minute. I want to total up the asking prices DeAnn and Robin came up with for what we have here. We need to earn back five hundred dollars to pay for our share of the tent rentals for the sutler's area.'

'That should be easy,” Robin said. “All of the full-sized quilts are priced at least that high.'

'You aren't serious, are you?” Lauren asked. “We'll have five hundred after the first hour.'

'Of course, I'm not serious,” Harriet said. She nervously tapped her pen on the page she was holding. “I just want to know what to expect profit-wise.'

Robin put a garish purple-and-green quilt Sarah had made on the top of the stack.

'That's the last one for now,” she said.

'Let me know if you two need anything,” Harriet said. She finished adding up the figures on their list, wrote them in a small notebook and dropped the book into her bag. “You ready?” she asked Mavis, and when the older woman nodded, they left.

'Do you need to stop at the store or anything while we're in town?” Harriet asked.

Mavis declined, and Harriet pointed her car toward Mavis’ cottage on the wooded shores of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Foggy Point is a peninsula on the northwest edge of Washington State. It resembles the head and small front claw of a tyrannosaurus, jutting into the inland waters that form the border between the United States and Canada. In earlier times, the jagged outline of the peninsula made a perfect hiding place for pirates and their sailing ships between forays. Eventually, one of the more successful among them, Cornelius Fogg, had settled down and founded the town of Foggy Point.

The downtown area of Foggy Point was situated on what would be the back of the T-rex's neck and spanned an area of six square blocks, with most of the activity centered within two blocks on either side of Main Street.