Elm Creek Quilts [12] The Winding Ways Quilt (31 page)

“So many good-byes,” Diane grumbled, setting out for Elm Creek Manor. “With more to come.”

“Oh, Diane,” said Agnes sympathetically. “I know you’re going to miss Todd.”

“That’s the understatement of the month.” Yes, he would come home for school breaks, but she would not pretend things would be the same. Todd was setting forth upon a one-way journey from home into the greater world, and she doubted he would be content to settle down in Waterford afterward as she had done. He would soon come to think of his childhood home as his parents’ home, and himself a welcome visitor within it as he built a wonderful life for himself elsewhere.

And this was what she wanted for him, although it meant a loss to herself.

“You and Gwen should talk,” Agnes said. “You’re both sending children off to school, and I imagine you’re both feeling a sense of loss. You could help each other through it.”

“Gwen doesn’t really know what I’m going through,” said Diane. “She had Summer around a lot longer than I had Todd.”

“I suppose you’re right. You’re suffering much more than Gwen is.” Agnes’s voice carried a trace of amusement. “Even so. You have Tim at home, and Michael is still in Waterford, for now. Gwen is on her own.”

“Gwen isn’t on her own,” said Diane. “She has the Elm Creek Quilters.”

And so did Diane.

The Elm Creek Quilters who lived in the manor joined the campers for breakfast, but those who lived elsewhere usually arrived after the meal was finished, just in time to prepare for their first classes of the day. Diane had time to stop by the kitchen to fill her favorite mug with coffee before meeting her Beginning Piecing students in the apple orchard. When the weather was fair, Diane couldn’t stand to be shut up within four walls, so she and her students would spread old blankets on the ground and hold their class in the shade of the leafy boughs. Her students reveled in the relaxed, casual atmosphere of her outdoor classroom. At this time of the year, crisp, ripe apples dangled temptingly overhead as they practiced their running stitches or learned how to sew curves. Sylvia allowed her guests to eat as many apples as they liked, and after class, most of Diane’s students returned to the manor with an apple in hand and an extra tucked inside a tote bag for a friend.

Diane enjoyed teaching beginning quilters—but not, as her friends teased, because they were the only campers whose skills did not surpass her own. She enjoyed encouraging them to take their first tentative stitches and shared their glow of accomplishment when they competed their first hand-pieced blocks. She knew she had a way of teasing the fear out of them when they were reluctant to try something that seemed too difficult. She found respite in the slower pace, the attention to fundamental skills, the wisdom that came in being absorbed by the process of the craft, rather than seeking the quickest route to the end product. Gathering novices around her in a circle in the shade of the apple trees, Diane felt connected to generations of women before her who had passed along their knowledge and wisdom, affection and encouragement. This, she believed, was the essence of Elm Creek Quilts, the fostering of community the heart of their mission.

Her own initiation into the quilting world had embraced these principles, for she had been fortunate to find a patient teacher with a gift for clear explanations and gentle critiques. If her virtuous teacher had known why Diane had suddenly become so determined to learn, however, she might have given her stubborn pupil a scolding along with her lessons.

Her mother had quilted, and her mother before her; Diane could only guess how many other quilters claimed even higher branches on her family tree. Even the kindly lady who babysat her, Agnes Emberly, knew how to create soft, snuggly quilts with the most beautiful appliquéd flowers Diane had ever seen. Yet somehow, growing up surrounded by quilts and the women who made them, Diane had not had the slightest inclination to learn to sew. Why should she invest months or years into making a single quilt when so many other people were happy to make quilts for her?

She was grown, married, and the mother of two before the urge to quilt seized her. One summer day, Agnes, who had become a trusted friend, invited Diane to accompany her to the Waterford Summer Quilt Festival. Diane’s sons, nine and eleven at the time, were off at day camp, so she gladly accepted.

In the sunny library atrium, quilts of all descriptions hung in neat rows from tall wooden stands. Quilters and quilt lovers alike strolled through the rows, admiring patchwork and appliquéd pieces both large and small, in every attractive color combination imaginable, and a few that Diane thought should have been left to the imagination. She and Agnes viewed each quilt in turn, reading the program for the artists’ names and their thoughts on their work. Quilt guild members wearing white gloves mingled through the crowd, ready to turn over an edge so onlookers could examine a quilt’s backing, where the fine quilting stitches appeared more distinctly than on the patterned top.

Although Agnes was too modest to consider herself a master quilter, she had built up an impressive store of knowledge over the years, and whenever Diane lingered before an especially remarkable work, Agnes murmured an analysis of its pattern, design elements, and construction techniques. With Agnes’s help, even Diane’s inexpert eye could distinguish between a truly challenging pattern that tested the maker’s skills and one that merely appeared difficult, but could be assembled rather easily if one knew the technique. Diane learned how subtle variations in color and contrast added intriguing complexity to relatively basic patterns, and how uninspired fabric choices detracted from otherwise technically masterful quilts.

Some of the quilts were just plain bizarre. “I could have made that,” Diane said, loudly enough for Agnes to hush her. “Look at all those threads she forgot to trim. Your flowers are always perfectly smooth.”

“I do needle-turn. This is raw-edge appliqué,” murmured Agnes. “It’s a particular technique.”

“I get it,” said Diane. “Do something badly and fend off criticism by calling it a technique.”

Agnes took her by the elbow and steered her away from the quilt. “The artist or her best friend or her mother might have been standing right behind you.”

Before Diane could protest that if the quilter didn’t want feedback she shouldn’t have entered her quilt in a show, she stopped short, captivated by a stunning quilt at the end of the aisle. It was a simple arrangement of twenty-four blocks in six rows of four, with a narrow blue inner border framed by a scrappy pieced outer border. She did not recognize the pattern, which resembled a star with a square in the center overlying a cross. The horizontal and vertical crossbars seemed to create a woven net that captured the sparkling stars. But it was the quilt’s colors that charmed her the most. What at first glance appeared to be simply reds, blues, and greens actually ranged in each color from a soft pastel to the true, clear hue. The colors were restful to look upon, contented and happy, as if the quilt knew a reassuring secret that it meant to share.

“It’s simply gorgeous,” said Diane, soaking in the peaceful feelings the quilt inspired.

“It certainly deserves that ribbon,” Agnes remarked.

Diane tore her gaze from the quilt and spotted the purple “Viewer’s Choice” ribbon affixed to the tall post supporting the quilt stand. Above it was the placard announcing the title of the quilt, “Springtime in Waterford,” and the quiltmaker’s name.

Diane’s heart flip-flopped. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What? What’s the matter?” asked Agnes.

Diane couldn’t speak. It couldn’t be true. It was inconceivable that her mean-spirited troll of a next-door neighbor could have created such a delightful quilt. “Someone mixed up the names,” she managed to say.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Agnes. “They take good care to make sure mistakes like that don’t happen. Even if they had, someone would have noticed well before now and corrected the sign.”

Diane stared at Mary Beth Callahan’s name for a moment in utter disbelief before stalking off down the next aisle. “She only won that ribbon because she’s popular,” she muttered, even though she knew it wasn’t true. “Notice how the quilt didn’t win any technical awards?”

Agnes would have none of it, and in a voice barely above a whisper, she insisted that Diane sweeten her sour temperament or they were going home. Diane was tempted to remind Agnes that she wasn’t her babysitter anymore, but she hated to see the older woman so distressed, so she promised to cheer up and keep her editorial comments to herself.

A few days later, Diane was in her backyard moving the sprinklers when Mary Beth stepped out onto her deck to refill her bird feeders. “Hello,” Diane called after a moment. Her neighbor eyed her warily before offering a nod in reply.

Diane stepped clear of the hose and drew closer to the row of forsythia bushes that marked the boundary between their yards. “I saw your quilt at the show in the college library,” she said. “It was beautiful. Congratulations on winning a ribbon.”

“Thanks,” said Mary Beth warily, as if waiting for the punch line of a nasty joke.

“It must have taken you a long time to make.”

“Naturally you assume I’d have to struggle to make a prizewinning quilt.”

“That’s not what I meant. It just looked like a difficult pattern.”

Mary Beth set down the bag of birdseed and tied off the opening. “It’s not that hard if you know what you’re doing.”

“What’s that block called, anyway?” asked Diane. “I never saw my mom or her friends make anything like it. I wish I could.”

“You?” Mary Beth burst out laughing. “Oh, Diane. I knew you were up to something, but I still didn’t see that zinger coming. Go ahead, get all your quilting jokes out of your system. I can take it. Oh wait, let me guess the first one. ‘Where’s your rocking chair, Grandma?’ That was it, right?” Mary Beth shook her head and slung the burlap bag over her shoulder.

“I don’t have any quilting jokes,” said Diane, irritated. “I mean it. I’d love to be able to make something as beautiful as that quilt.”

Mary Beth studied her, eyebrows lifted in skepticism. “Jeez Louise, Diane. I thought you said your mother was a quilter.”

“She was.”

“Then you ought to know you aren’t cut out to be a quilter, no pun intended.”

Diane tried to tamp down her rising ire. “And why is that?”

“It takes patience to be a quilter. Patience and perseverance. Attention to detail—and let’s face it, you’re practically allergic to details. But it’s more than just that. Those things can be learned with practice and willpower. You also need—” Mary Beth gazed speculatively somewhere past Diane’s shoulder before fixing her with a patronizing, sorrowful smile. “You need the soul of an artist.”

“And you think I don’t have one,” said Diane. “That soul-of-an-artist thing.”

“Exactly.” Mary Beth made her way around the side of her house to the garage, the heavy bag on her shoulder giving her the appearance of an overdressed thief making off with stolen goods.

Diane stood watching her go, fuming, until a gust of wind dashed her with cold spray from the sprinkler. Storming back into the house, she kicked off her wet shoes in the foyer and padded to the phone. She dialed Agnes’s number, and before her old friend could begin the usual exchange of pleasantries, Diane begged her to teach her to quilt.

She’d show Mary Beth who had the soul of an artist. She’d learn to sew circles around that wretched woman, and one day she’d wave a handful of Best of Show ribbons beneath her nose and watch gleefully as Mary Beth melted into a puddle of envy. Diane used to teach middle school, for crying out loud. If she didn’t know patience and perseverance, she never would have made it through student teaching.

That was her plan, but it didn’t quite work out that way.

Agnes was so delighted that Diane had finally “caught the quilt-pox” that she didn’t ask why Diane suddenly, urgently needed to learn to quilt. Agnes probably assumed that Diane had been inspired by the glorious display at the quilt show, and it wouldn’t have been completely dishonest to claim that was so. Diane didn’t dare reveal her true purpose. Agnes strongly disapproved of the ongoing battle of wills between the two neighbors, and she might have ended the lessons rather than contribute to the tension.

But Diane soon discovered that anger could only sustain her so long. Under Agnes’s gentle but unyielding tutelage, Diane’s hunger to prove herself better than Mary Beth disappeared, to be replaced by a genuine love for the traditional art form. The infinite diversity of possible combinations of color, pattern, and arrangement appealed to her desire for variety, and Agnes charmed her with folk tales of block patterns and their curious names. Once Diane had gained a passing facility with piecing and quilting by hand, Agnes offered to show her how to transfer those skills to the sewing machine so that she could assemble her blocks and tops more quickly. Recalling Mary Beth’s accusations that she lacked patience, Diane flatly refused. “True quilts are made entirely by hand,” she declared, threading a needle.

“Why on earth would you say that?” asked Agnes, genuinely baffled. “Women have been making quilts by machine for as long as there have been sewing machines.”

“True quilters don’t cut corners. They enjoy every stage of the process and don’t want to rush through it.”

Agnes shook her head, exasperated. “You’ve become very opinionated where quilting is concerned. You’re almost as bad as—”

“Who?” demanded Diane, fearful that she would name Mary Beth.

“Someone who tried to teach me to quilt, many years ago. Never mind. You don’t know her.”

Only years later, after Sylvia returned to Elm Creek Manor and reconciled with her formerly estranged sister-in-law, did Diane learn enough about their shared history to conclude that Diane had reminded Agnes of Sylvia. Diane found the comparison rather flattering. Sylvia was a strong-willed Master Quilter with exacting standards, someone Diane would do well to emulate. Why had Agnes phrased the comparison as criticism?

At the end of class, Diane and her students gathered their things and returned to the manor for lunch, greeting Gretchen’s husband, Joe, as they passed the barn. He was sanding an old chair Matt had brought down from the attic. Back in Ambridge, Joe had run his own small business, restoring old furniture and designing custom pieces. Diane thought the Hartleys’ move to Elm Creek Manor had signaled Joe’s retirement, but apparently Sylvia’s attic held enough worn but reparable antiques to keep him busy for years to come. With any luck, his search for bureaus and bedsteads would uncover more of the Bergstrom family’s heirloom quilts, or perhaps a journal or two.