Make Quilts Not War - By Arlene Sachitano Page 0,1

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. “Besides, 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,