This book is dedicated to Colonel Henry Bohne, Medical Corp, US Army Reserve. In an age when his peers are traveling to resorts and golf courses, Hank has joined the army and put himself in harm’s way to care for our injured soldiers. For that we thank him.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Any endeavor that takes place over a period of time and requires a degree of effort, requires support from ones family, friends and acquaintances and writing a book is no exception. Thank you to all of you who have had your schedule or plans disrupted by my writing schedule or promotional travels; in particular, Susan, Susan and Annie.

I’d like to thank Katy King, my critique “partner” (we are all that’s left of our group) who always gives me insightful comments and suggestions on my current manuscript.

Once a book is written, a lot of effort goes into promotion. I’d like to thank everyone who has hosted events for me or allowed me into their shop, booth, parking lot or bookstore. Special thanks to Vern and Betty Swearingen of StoryQuilts, Linne and Jack Lindquist of Craftsman’s Touch Books, Ruth Derksen of Shop Girl Fabrics and Deon Stonehouse of Sunriver Books and Music.

As always, thanks to Liz and Zumaya Publications for making all this possible. Special thanks to April Martinez for the great cover work.

Last but not least, thanks to Jack and our offspring and their offspring.

Prologue

The shooter couldn’t have planned better circumstances. Evenly spaced along the exterior wall of the large exhibition area were alcoves with life-sized statues representing prominent figures from Washington state’s past. Captain Robert Gray was shown holding his spyglass to his eye. It was perfect.

The backlighting meant anyone looking away from the well-lit quilt display would see the silhouette of the statue, the spyglass pointing directly at the target, hiding the rifle of the killer concealed in its shadow.

The target, unaware she was taking her last breaths, stood on the far side of the show floor on a raised stage, a white glove on one hand to allow her to handle the quilt hanging behind her without fear of soiling it. The glove wasn’t going to be any help, the shooter mused then sighted on the target and pulled the trigger.

Chapter 1

“It was a dark time,” Mavis Willis said.

The Loose Threads quilt group sat spellbound around the table
in the large classroom at the back of Pins and Needles, Foggy
Point, Washington’s, best and only quilt store.

“Cotton had once been king. Up until the early nineteen-sixties, something like eighty percent of the textiles sold in America were
made of cotton. By the mid-nineteen-seventies, it was down to
maybe thirty-five percent. Cotton was displaced by the scourge of the decade.”

“Polyester?” Harriet Truman said in a hushed voice.

“That and worse,” Mavis replied. “Synthetics of all sorts. Our fabric, our threads, our upholstery—the very warp and weft of our being was being supplanted by a poseur.”

“What did you do?” Carla Salter asked, her eyes round. At
twenty-three, she was the youngest member of the group and had never experienced polyester fabric firsthand.

“What
could
we do?” Harriet’s Aunt Beth answered for her
friend.
“We used what was available. Our fabric was a cotton/acrylic
blend, heavy on the acrylic.”

“I think everyone made at least one polyester knit quilt, too,”
Mavis confessed with a small shrug.

“Yes,” Beth agreed. “We all have them.”

“Where?” Harriet challenged. “I’ve never seen yours.”

“Would you display it, if you had one?” Mavis asked.

“Good point,” Harriet said.

“I’m sure the colors were different back then, too.” Robin
McLeod said tactfully.

“If you mean avocado green, electric orange and mustard yellow, you’re right, if the pictures in my mom’s photo album are any indication,” Lauren Sawyer added.

“Those were the colors of the times,” said Aunt Beth. “Not just for quilts, either. Appliances and shag carpets also favored them.”

“I guess I’m glad our house is historic,” Harriet said, referring to the spacious Victorian home her aunt had given her, along with
the long-arm quilting business housed within, when the older
woman had retired.

“I wanted a harvest gold refrigerator in the worst way,” Aunt
Beth mused. “I was so jealous when Mavis got hers.” She smiled at her friend.

“My mami was so thrilled when
papi
put Astroturf on our ce
ment patio,” Connie Escorcia said, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “
Diós mio
,” she added with a laugh. “Those were the days.”

“How old were you in the sixties?” Carla asked Connie, blushing at her own boldness in asking such a personal question.

“Those were my glory days,” Connie replied with a smile. “I
was a teenager. I was born in nineteen-fifty, so I turned ten in nineteen-sixty. My mami taught me to sew on her sewing machine when I was twelve, but I didn’t take up quilting until my babies were in school. By then, I’d gone back to teaching, so I didn’t have a lot of time.”

“When do we need to have our quilts finished?” Lauren interrupted. She looked at the clock on her phone. “I have to meet my client in forty-five minutes.”

“The sixties festival opens in exactly four weeks,” Harriet said. “They want us to have the quilts hanging in the exhibition hall by Friday of the week before.”

“Yikes,” Robin McLeod exclaimed. “I got behind when the
power was out from the storm. I’ve got mine cut out, but I haven’t sewn a stitch yet.”

“You better get cracking,” Mavis said. “They didn’t do long-arm machine quilting back then, so Harriet isn’t going to be able to stitch your quilt for you.”

“I’m tying mine with yarn,” Carla said.

“That was popular back then,” Beth assured her.

“What are
you
doing, Harriet?” Lauren asked.

“I’m working with some cheater cloth,” she replied, referring to a fabric that is preprinted with images of pieced quilt blocks. “I’m doing some piecing to go along with it, but I’m not sure I like what I’ve gotten done so far.”

“I’ll be done with mine by next week,” Jenny Logan said. “I can help sew binding or…” She looked at Carla. “…tie knots.”

“You made another quilt?” Lauren asked. “I thought I heard
Marjory ask you to bring that quilt you have in your guest room. Didn’t you say you made that in the sixties?”

Marjory was the owner of Pins and Needles and was chair of the textile show committee for the upcoming festival.

“Yes, but that was forty-some years ago. The fabric is faded and worn, and I was just learning to quilt back then.”

“It looked like it was in pretty good shape when I saw it,”
Lauren persisted.

“I need to do something current. I wish I’d never shown it to
you all. I wasn’t a real quilter back then. The batting is an old blanket, and I made the blocks from old clothes. And I tied it with acrylic yarn.” She shuddered with the memory.

“Marjory’s not going to take no for an answer,” Mavis told her. “She’s looked at every authentic sixties quilt in our community, and yours was the only one that didn’t have orange and brown in it. They want to hang it in the exhibit hall, and with those mustard-colored walls, orange just wouldn’t work.”

“I’m still not comfortable with it,” Jenny said, tucking a stray
strand of silver hair behind her ear then patting it into place.

“It captures the youthful spirit of the times,” Harriet said. “Be
sides, anyone who attends quilt shows around here knows your
quilting has improved dramatically since the sixties. If it bothers you that much, I’m sure you could ask them to leave your name off of it. Do you have a label on the back?”

“Of course not,” Jenny snapped then reddened when Harriet
and Carla stared at her. Her tone softened. “I mean, we didn’t
think of that back in those days. It was just a quilt meant to be used on a bed. And thank you, I will ask Marjory if they can leave my name out of it.”

“I just hope all this effort is worth it,” Aunt Beth said. “I know some of the other communities around here have had success with theme weeks during the dead of winter as a way to pull tourists in, but no one has ever done the sixties before.”

“It does seem like that time period would better lend itself to a summer event—summer of love and all that,” Harriet said.

“The committee thought people were burning out on murder mystery weekends, especially with what’s been going on in Foggy Point the last few months,” Mavis said.

“Langley isn’t that far from here,” Beth added, referring to the host community of a very successful mystery weekend held every year on Whidby Island.

She and Mavis had been on a planning subcommittee once the
main group had decided to add a quilt show to the lineup of
events.

“I can’t imagine any theme they could choose that would boost my business. I’m in such a specialized niche tourism doesn’t affect me at all.” Harriet said.

“You got some additional work when we did the Civil War quilts last summer, didn’t you?” Lauren asked.

“I did, but it was from you guys, not new customers, and then no one did new quilts for a month after that, so in the end it wasn’t an increase at all.”

“Well, at least the stores and restaurants will get a lift,” Jenny said.

“I heard the newspaper was going to run a special edition, with headlines from the era,” Robin said, rejoining the conversation. She and her friend DeAnn Gault had been concentrating on the binding they were hand stitching on a lap quilt they were making as a gift for Robin’s elderly grandmother.

“They’re offering very affordable advertising,” Marjory chimed in from the kitchen across the hall. She came into the classroom. “The staff will help you tailor your ad to the theme. They got into their archives and made copies of representative advertising from nineteen sixty-eight.”

“Wow, they’re really getting into it,” Harriet said.

“My mom is digging out a couple of macramé pieces she made for the county fair,” DeAnn said.

Carla looked up, clearly confused.

“Macramé was a popular craft back in the day,” Aunt Beth said.

“People braided polyester cord into intricate designs,” Mavis added.

“They made hangers for potted plants, or sometimes you could put little glass or mirror pieces into them and make a hanging shelf,” Beth continued. “We all tried our hand at it.”

“People made belts and guitar straps and choker necklaces,
too,”
Jenny said. “They usually used hemp cord for the bracelets and
neckwear, though.”

“Sounds…interesting,” Carla said, her cheeks turning pink as she spoke.

BOOK: Make Quilts Not War

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