The following week, at the guild meeting, Darcy asked everyone who said “Hello,” to her, “What would you sew for your last quilt?”
Charlotte spoke up first, “A baby quilt. It’s all I’ve been sewing lately, and they’re small enough to finish quickly.”
“If I knew it was my last quilt, I might make a feathered star,” replied Sophia.
“Dear egads,” Darcy replied, “There is no way these arthritic hands are pressing or trimming that many half-square triangles to place around a darned star. You know I don’t follow directions well.”
“You’re just sore because you didn’t buy the tool,” Sophie replied.
“I don’t use uni-taskers,” Darcy replied automatically. She did not like tools and did not like sewing two squares together only to cut them in half and trim and press them again, to sew them into a design. She would sew three seams toward each other in the y-seam tradition first, if she could. Most quilters preferred the so-called easy method. Alas, Darcy needed a last quilt and none of these suggestions held any water for her, so to speak.
However, Crystal arrived, and Darcy chatted with her as they set up. They caught up on each other’s comings and goings, and Darcy provided Crystal with input on her latest pattern, which she’d requested three days before the event. This had become a pattern for the women over forty years of friendship, so Darcy simply cleared her calendar the week before the event in order to test it.
Darcy believed you had to sew a quilting pattern in order to test it. Crystal believed in using things you could find around the house (though Darcy never knew which item to anticipate) in each of her patterns. They called Darcy a rogue quilter as she tested Crystal’s pattern without the intended tools. The first one she’d tested had involved restaurant sized coffee filters, in which Darcy skipped the filter and ended-up creating another style of quilt instead. Later, she had turned it into a Medallion style quilt for her Dear Matthew.
Finally, as they got set up, she popped the question to Crystal, “If you knew the next quilt, which one would you make?” Darcy asked.
“Let me get back to you after the show,” Crystal suggested.
In the meantime, Darcy asked around and received several variations on the themes she’d already heard. Her favorite may have been, “I’d go back and re-sew my first quilt ever to see how much I’ve improved,” contributed by Geri. Darcy thought you could see improvement with each quilt sewn but refrained from commenting. She still wasn’t sure how, as she’d never been a fan of biting her tongue. It hurt.
She enjoyed Crystal’s presentation as she knew she would and helped her take the patterns down at the end. Feeling her own seventy-seven years of life, Crystal mentioned that these spry sixty-year-olds should start peddling their own wares and let the old women rest.
“We’re not going to rest until that grave is dug and sealed around us,” Darcy reminded her.
“You’re right, but a girl can dream. Speaking of graves, since you seem to be dipping your foot in one, I’ve thought about the quilt.”
“I’m not dipping my foot in the grave. I’m being practical,” Darcy interrupted her friend.
“Practical or Fanciful, which you somehow manage to be both, I’ve decided I’d do a Bargello.”
“Why a Bargello?” Darcy asked.
“Because I’ve never done one. I suck at cutting strips and I never feel like I can get things to line up right. So, I’d do a Bargello as my last quilt,” Crystal informed her.
“Okay, I have one more tough question,” Darcy said.
“What is that?” Crystal asked.
“Who would you gift it to?”
“To heck with gifting it. That baby’s getting buried with me.” Crystal declared.
Darcy laughed, knowing she would be buried as a tree, but she wanted this last quilt to have some value and use. She’d think about it overnight and decide in the morning, she thought. Especially since she’d been out way past her bed-time with those spry sixty-year-old gals.
