Cutwork (22 page)

Godwin said, “My Spanish isn’t very good, but
hasta la vista
means until I see you again. So I figure
Hasta la Stitches
should mean something like until I stitch again. So the name means, this will keep you occupied between stitching.”

Shelly was reading swiftly down the double columns of type. “Oh, wow, too cool!” She turned it over. “Oh, look, here’s a counted pattern! It’s an ear of corn . . .” She turned, frowning at Godwin. “Why an ear of corn?”

“To put on your barbecue apron, of course. I’m thinking people will have time to finish it before the first sweet corn arrives.” He said to Betsy, “We ordered too much waste canvas last time, and to put this onto an apron they’ll need a piece around six inches by four inches. Bigger if they want to put some cute slogan with it, like KISS THE COOK, or REAL MEN COOK.”

Waste canvas is a heavily starched evenweave meant to be basted onto a sweatshirt or jeans or any other ordinary fabric. Then a counted cross-stitch pattern is done on the clothing with the waste threads as a guide. When washed, waste canvas threads became thin and can be pulled from under the stitches.

Betsy nodded approval. “That’s the way, Goddy.”

He continued, “Maybe we should make it HEART THE COOK, or I HEART TO GRILL, and suggest that instead of a stitched heart they should use a button or charm. I know we have a lot of heart buttons.”

“Cle-
ver
!” Shelly said, adding, “Hey, the pattern colors are given only in Anchor.”

“I know,” said Godwin. “I wrote down the DMC equivalents in case anyone asks, but I didn’t put them in the newsletter.” DMC floss was sold in discount stores at prices Crewel World could not afford to match; Anchor flosses were sold only in independent needlework shops. Godwin was anxious to get as much of a return for Crewel World as possible.

Shelly said, “These aren’t hard to translate anyway: I know that Anchor 226, 227, and 228 are greens that match DMC 700, 701 and 702. I assume the other numbers are yellows.”

“Show-off!”

“Here, let me see it,” said Betsy, and Shelly handed over the newsletter. “I like the pattern,” Betsy said. She turned the sheet over and sat down to read it.

There had been an article in last December’s “Nuts About Needlework,” an online newsletter for needlepointers. It had some great tips for correcting mistakes in color on needlepoint canvases that didn’t call for the stitcher to frog whole sections. Betsy had read it there, having had that very problem not long before—and here it was again. “Godwin, did you get permission to reprint this?”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “In fact, when I e-mailed them about it, they told me I could take all the helpful hints I wanted from their newsletters, so long as I gave credit.”

Betsy had already seen that he credited the original author of the article, Janet Perry. She looked down at the bottom of the article, and sure enough, he’d put a note:
Want more of this kind of stuff?
Contact
[email protected]
to subscribe
.

“Well, that’s all right, then.” She held out the newsletter at arm’s length. “You know this layout is pretty nifty; I like the two columns.”

“Thanks,” said Godwin with a lofty air. “Photocopy ready and everything.”

“But you put only one T in ‘newsletter.’ And you spelled ‘foreground’ without an E. And ‘aspects’ is not spelled with a Z.”

“Those are typos,” said Godwin. “Mostly. Does ‘foreground’ really have an E in it?”

Shelly said, “I’ll proofread for you, Goddy, if you like.”

Betsy looked at her. “He wants to bring one out every other month. Are you going to have time when school is in session to proofread this?”

“Two sides of a single sheet of paper? Piece of cake.”

“Two sides of a legal-size sheet of paper.”

“Piece of cake,” insisted Shelly.

Betsy handed the sheet to her. “Be sure your name goes on under Goddy’s, so they’ll know who to blame if you don’t fix every mistake. I’ll put our mailing list on a disk for you, Goddy, so you can run a set of labels.”

“I’ll pick it up when I come to Char’s Hardanger class tonight,” said Godwin. “Could you also put the schedule of classes on the disk? There’s a space I left in the newsletter for that.”

Shelly said, “I thought that was for the address of the customer.”

“But envelopes are classier,” said Godwin.

“And more expensive than the dabs of tape it takes to close the folds tight before mailing them.”

“Oh.” He looked at Betsy, who nodded. “All right. I’ll see if I can rearrange things to put the schedule in and still leave room for mailing addresses.” He looked over his copy-ready efforts like an author who had just been told his favorite scene in a manuscript has to come out.

15

Monday evening, another Hardanger class. Betsy had managed to finish the first pattern, but the new pattern Char Norton handed around was bigger and more complex. Betsy took it with such an unhappy sigh that Char said, “Betsy, I don’t think you’re having a good time in this class.”

Betsy replied candidly, “I’m not. I guess there are areas of needlework that are still beyond my little skills.”

Godwin said stoutly, “What ‘little skills’? Your needlepoint is as good as almost anyone’s, and you’re an excellent knitter—you’ve learned some stitches it took me
years
to master.”

“Yes, but I
like
knitting. It’s . . . soothing. My mind seems to open to big thoughts when I’m into the rhythm of knitting.”

There was a murmur of understanding around the table.

“But you don’t like Hardanger,” said Char.

“It’s not that I don’t like it,” said Betsy slowly, feeling her way. “It’s that . . . Well, all right, I don’t like it. There’s no wiggle room in Hardanger; you have to do it exactly right or it doesn’t work.”

Ivy said, a little surprised, “But that’s why I like it. Every single stitch is important. It’s, like, perfection. I can make this one thing absolutely perfect. When I snip and pull and it comes right out like it should, it’s a good feeling.”

Again a murmur of agreement.

Char said, “That’s why I like it, too. Life is so messy, but here is one thing where I’m in control and I can do it exactly right.” She smiled at Betsy. “It’s all right. Needlework is a huge arena, and people have always played ‘pick and choose.’ Bobbin lace is another area where you have to be really careful, but I don’t like bobbin lace.”

“You can make a mistake and keep going in bobbin lace,” reflected Bershada. “Of course, when you look at it later, it sticks out like a sore thumb.”

“I don’t like to crochet,” confessed Shelly. “I don’t know why, I just don’t.”

This set off a round-table discussion of needle lace, counted cross-stitch, bargello, cutwork, stumpwork, schwalm, crochet, crewel, knitting, needlepoint, and other forms of stitchery one or more of the students didn’t get or even couldn’t stand. Doris had the fewest, but that was because she had come to needlework late in life and hadn’t tried as many as the others.

“Remember macramé?” asked Ivy.

“Remember it?” said Bershada with a sigh. “I still have an owl in my attic made of macramé!”

“Gosh, I did that owl, too,” said Ivy. “I made him of white cotton twine, with brown beads for the eyes and a twig for his feet to hang on to.”

“Twig? Twig?” said Bershada, laughing now. “I made mine of half-inch rope and he’s got a big ol’
limb
off a tree in his claws!”

“I did that owl,” said Margie. “Made him of string. I was in third grade and it was a Christmas present for my mother. She hung it in a tree in the backyard. Said it was to keep starlings away, but I think she was hoping it would rot faster in the outdoors.”

Everyone laughed, and Char said, “So okay, macramé was one thing we all liked.”

“Not me,” said Godwin. “I was still just a twinkle in my daddy’s eye when you all were doing macramé.”

“Hush, baby, Char’s making a point,” said Bershada.

“The point is,” said Char, “we don’t want to run Betsy out of the class, but on the other hand we don’t want to make her miserable. What do you want to do, Betsy? Is there something else I can teach you?”

“Do you know how to do other kinds of cutwork?”

“Other kinds than what?”

“Than Hardanger.”

“Hardanger isn’t cutwork.”

“Sure it is. Isn’t it? I mean, you surround areas of fabric with stitching and you cut out the areas. That’s cutwork, right?”

Char gestured. “No, Hardanger is drawn-thread work. Drawn thread is about symmetry. Hardanger has to be symmetrical, every kloster has to line up, or you can’t pull the threads. Cutwork is about . . .” She thought for a moment. “Curves. Outlines. And though you wouldn’t think it, cutwork is the ancestor of lace.”

Bershada said, “It is? I thought Hardanger was!”

Char shook her head. “Hardanger is its own self, not ancestor or descendant. It was invented in Norway.”

Shelly asked, “Well, where did cutwork come from?”

“Cutwork was invented in Italy, though its ancestors were forms of embroidery that came from the Orient by way of ancient Greece or Egypt. It was done on linen with linen threads, back before they had dyes that really took, so both cloth and floss were the natural tans of linen. That’s why purists like me still prefer it done color on color.” Char counted on her fingers. “First there was cutwork; and then Richelieu, where they cut so much away they had to invent stabilizing bars across the open areas so the pattern would hold its shape; then
punto tagliato,
where they filled some of the open areas with patterns made of thread; and then
punto in aria,
‘stitching in the air,’ when they realized they didn’t need to stitch on the fabric at all, but just used it to hold down the corners of a pattern they made entirely in thread.”

“Are we here to stitch or take a class in history?” interrupted Bershada.

“Sorry,” said Char, turning pink. “I forget that for you all this is a hobby. For me it’s my life.”

“Trust me, it’s our lives, too,” said Godwin. “When I think of all the other places I could be . . .”

“But you’d far, far rather be here,” said Bershada. “Me, too.”

Betsy said, “Char, you know how to do cutwork, right?”

“Yes. In fact, I brought a pattern to show.” She produced a square of white cloth on which was printed the outlines of a squared wreath of flowers. “This is the top of a pillow, like for a ring bearer. You trace these petal and leaf shapes by stitching around the edges. Then you cut it out of the cloth and appliqué it to the silk cloth of your pillow.” She was holding the cutwork pattern out, and Betsy took it. Char continued, “Cutwork can be symmetrical or not. It doesn’t matter, so long as the areas you want to cut out are surrounded by solid lines of buttonhole stitching. That is a relatively easy pattern—some are more complex.”

“I think it’s attractive,” said Betsy, tracing the lines with her forefinger. The flowers and leaves outlined an empty square. “I can see this cut out and appliquéd around the neck of a black dress, can’t you? Lay it over the shoulders and across the back and front.” She picked it up and held it out, head cocked, eyes half closed as she visualized it on a dress upstairs in her closet. She turned the fabric around so the others could see the pattern.

“Ooooh, yes,” said Bershada, “that
would
be pretty.”

“Which did you like in high school?” asked Shelly. “Algebra or geometry?”

“Why?” asked Betsy, surprised at this sudden change of subject.

“Because almost everyone liked one but not the other. I liked algebra.”

“Me, too,” said Char, and Margie nodded, also looking puzzled.

“No.” Betsy shook her head. “I liked geometry.”

“And I bet that’s why you like cutwork rather than Hardanger. Your head can get around that kind of pattern better than this.” She held out the new Hardanger pattern in its hoops.

“Have you tried cutwork, Shelly?” asked Betsy.

“No.” Shelly shook her head. “I have three pairs of my grandmother’s cutwork pillowcases, and that’s all I need of cutwork. You can have too much of it, in my opinion.”

Betsy smiled. Shelly had to rotate her finished counted cross-stitch projects to give them all a chance to be displayed on the walls of her house. Yet she was working on at least three at present, had two being finished by a framer, owned dozens of unworked patterns—and was always on the lookout for more.

Bershada said, “I tried it, but it was too much work. The buttonhole stitch isn’t my favorite.”

“But that’s the stitch we’re doing here!” said Betsy.

“No, the kloster stitch isn’t the same as buttonhole; plus we change direction by ninety degrees every five stitches. Cutwork is following a line that curves forever—and I hate going around curves with that sad buttonhole stitch.”

But Betsy remembered doing curves in a decorative buttonhole stitch back when all she did was embroidery, and how it was interesting to follow the curves. So while everyone else settled into making kloster blocks, Betsy took a sharp needle from the packet of them on the table and spent the rest of the session rediscovering the buttonhole stitch.

After the class broke up, Char again remained behind. “Any progress to report?” she asked. “I only ask because Faith called me. She said she wasn’t sure what you were doing and she didn’t want to bother you if you were busy and . . .” That trailed off.

“And she realized she and Greg didn’t make a very good impression?” asked Betsy.

Char nodded, shamed. “The girls were angry and Faith was scared and Greg was being Greg.”

Betsy said, “I almost walked away from this. Mickey is not exactly the shining ornament of his generation, and he’s a liar besides, which makes him hard to work with. Or for. But I have been looking around, and there are some possibilities. I think it’s possible, for example, that someone else murdered Rob McFey and Mickey simply came along after and took the money.”