“Elaine designed it,” Christine warned in an undertone.
“I mean, it’s great,” said Charlie quickly. “It’s … Wow. Elaine did good work.”
“Elaine started it. I finished it.”
Two pairs of eyes fixed on him. Then Charlie laughed. “You finished it?”
“That’s right.” Russ studied the quilt for a moment. “And I’m thinking about starting another.”
“Why?”
Russ shrugged. “Something to do.”
Charlie and Christine exchanged a look. Christine delicately changed the subject, and no one mentioned the quilt for the rest of the evening.
Elaine’s books listed what must have been thousands of quilt patterns—stars and baskets and geometric designs with names like Shoo-Fly and Lone Star and Snail’s Trail. Russ leafed through the pages and tried to pick one or two he wouldn’t mind attempting, but cutting out precise pieces and sewing from point to point and making the same block over and over did not appeal to him. He liked the way Elaine’s last quilt just fell together.
He needed something to fill the nights and weekends. Elaine had left an inexhaustible supply of fabric to experiment with, so he decided to improvise. It wasn’t as if anyone else would see the quilt, unless he decided to hang it on the wall just to provoke another reaction from Charlie.
Russ had grudgingly admired Elaine’s rotary cutter from the time he first saw her slicing through fabric, years before. It was sharp, fast, and metal—in short, it was a guy tool. After sorting her fabric stash by color, he took about a yard of green and a yard of blue, stacked them on top of the cutting mat, and, using Elaine’s longest acrylic ruler as a guide, made four arbitrary slashes across the whole width of the fabric from left to right, varying the angle of the cut and the distance between them. He then turned the ruler and made four more slashes from top to bottom. He swapped every other green piece for blue and sewed the pieces together, checkerboard fashion. It was quick and satisfying, but the green and blue fabrics, so distinct and different when seen alone, blended into one mass when sewn together.
He tried again, this time choosing a deep green and a dull copper. Layering the fabrics as before, he cut more strips, some wide, some narrow. He swapped colors and sewed them together, for the first time racing along with something approaching Elaine’s speed. When he put the quilt top on the design wall and stepped back to examine it, he let out a dry chuckle. Looking at the quilt was like looking out at a lush green field through the metal bars of a cage. Only one small opening at the bottom where the bars did not completely reach the edge allowed for an escape.
He returned to the quilt shop, ignoring the curious stares of the employees as he picked out batting and an iridescent quilting thread unlike anything in Elaine’s sewing box just because it looked interesting. He came back a few days later after reading in one of Elaine’s reference books that such thread was meant for machine quilting only. He intended to exchange the thread for something more suitable for hand quilting, but he left the shop with the spool of thread still in his pocket and a new sewing machine foot especially for free-motion machine quilting.
His first attempt was a disaster. The bobbin thread bunched and knotted on the back of the quilt, the stitch length on top of the quilt varied from minuscule to long enough to catch on the presser foot, and he could only sew a minute or two before the top thread stretched and snapped. He took a perverse pride in being responsible for what was probably the worst example of machine quilting ever produced. The only thing he did right was to practice on junk fabric first.
When he thought he had learned all he could from books and practice, he committed his quilt top to the needle. The results were mixed. The quilting stitches brought out an interesting depth and dimension to the flat surface of the quilt top that he liked, but the finished quilt had somehow become distorted from true square. Obviously he was doing something wrong, but he had no idea what or how to fix it.
Finally he called one of Elaine’s quilting friends, Francine, a woman not quite his mother’s age who had organized the delivery of casseroles and cookies in the weeks following Elaine’s surgery and chemo. “You want help doing what?” she asked after he explained the purpose of his call.
“Free-motion machine quilting.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong.”
“You’re trying to make a quilt?”
“Yes,” he said, impatient. Why was it such a shock that he wanted to quilt? These quilters, who were so generous and encouraging to other women who wanted to learn to quilt, acted like he was demanding the right to use women’s public restrooms.
“Why?”
Russ did not have a good answer for that. “Never mind. Thanks anyway.”
“Wait!” commanded Francine. He returned the receiver to his ear. “Don’t hang up. Our quilt guild has a machine quilting workshop coming up this weekend. There are still a few spots open. Ordinarily you have to be a guild member to sign up, but I think we can make an exception for you, as the husband of a longtime member.”
“You mean, take a class with other people?”
“You’re not afraid of us, are you?”
“No, but—” He doubted he would be any more welcome there than at the quilt shop. “I was hoping you could just give me a few pointers over the phone.”
“It’s much easier to learn by watching. We’re meeting on Saturday at ten in the community center rec room, same place as always. Do you have a sewing machine?”
“There’s Elaine’s—”
“Don’t forget to bring it. And some fabric to practice on. I’ll sign you up and you can just pay at the door. See you then.”
She hung up before he could refuse.
All week long he intended to call Francine back and cancel, but somehow, Saturday morning found him lugging Elaine’s sewing machine into the community center. It appeared that all the other workshop participants had arrived early to set up their work-spaces, but he found an unoccupied place near the back. Most of the women ignored him, but a few threw him curious stares as he searched for someplace to plug in Elaine’s Bernina. After a while, a grandmotherly woman wearing her long gray hair in a bun helpfully pointed out the nearest power strip. He thanked her and sat down, already regretting that he had come.
But by the end of the afternoon, he had figured out where he had gone wrong with his first attempt at free-motion machine quilting; apparently, an uneven amount of quilting in different sections of the top could pull it out of shape. The instructor had also demonstrated a few techniques he had not seen in any of Elaine’s books, and she talked about how different kinds of thread could produce different effects. Then he caught himself taking mental notes of ideas to share with Elaine when he got home, and all interest in the workshop drained from him like air from a punctured tire.
Francine approached him afterward and asked him how he had fared in the workshop.
“Not bad.” He felt fairly confident about his machine quilting now, but none of the other quilters had talked to him during the breaks, and they all kept shooting him furtive, suspicious glances. “You should join the guild.”
“Me? Oh no. I don’t think so. I wouldn’t fit in.”
Francine was a retired high school principal, and at this remark, she gave him a look that made him feel like a truant sophomore. “Why? Because you’re a man?”
“To be honest, yes.”
“Oh, please.” She thrust a guild newsletter at him. “Don’t be such a coward. You have a lot to learn, and a guild is the best place for that. You’ll get a discount on future workshops, too. You’re not the only man who quilts, you know.”
He wasn’t? Russ took the newsletter, gave it a quick look, and stuffed it in his pocket. “Maybe I can make a meeting now and then.”
“Good. See you next Wednesday.”
“I didn’t say I’d come for sure.”
“I know.” She waggled her thick fingers at him over her shoulder a
s she departed.
He did go to the meeting, drawn by curiosity and hopeful that he would meet another male quilter. The lecture on Civil War era quilts was more interesting than he had expected, but the social break was a hassle, full of conversations that stopped as soon as he approached and more of those suspicious looks. It was a relief when Francine came over and, in her imposing way, asked if he was enjoying himself.
“Sure,” he said. “But I was hoping to meet some of those other men quilters you mentioned.”
“There aren’t any men in our guild yet.”
“But you said—”
“I said that male quilters exist, not that they are members of our guild. Of course, you could join and change all that.”
Russ looked around at the other quilters, all women, all studiously ignoring his conversation with the guild president. “I don’t think so.”
He stuck around for the second half of the meeting, but left as soon as the motion to adjourn had been approved. Elaine had always enjoyed her monthly quilt guild meetings, so he had expected a warmer welcome, a friendlier crowd. Then again, Elaine always brought out the best in people. She could have warmed up even that chilly bunch. But a quilting guild was clearly no place for him.
Quilting was the first thing he learned to enjoy without Elaine, and for a long time, it was the only thing. Then he began to run again, to go out for a beer with some of the guys from work every so often, to take in an occasional Seahawks game with Charlie. But always he returned to quilting. He alternated between completing one of Elaine’s unfinished quilts and one of his own designs. Trying to buy anything at the quilt shop, where he was alternately ignored and patronized, was such a demeaning experience that he started ordering his supplies through the Internet. One evening, web surfing after a purchase, he followed a shop’s link to a quilt museum to a fabric designer to a quilt block archive, where he stumbled upon an online quilting guild.
Intrigued, he read the messages other members had posted. A neophyte would pose a timid question; a flurry of encouraging responses from more experienced quilters would follow. Someone would post a celebratory note announcing a quilt finished or blue ribbon won and the others would shower her with praise and congratulations. A frustrated quilter would ask for advice on a challenging seam or an impossible block arrangement and receive it. Here, at last, he had found that elusive quilting community Elaine had often spoken of—and he realized that, courtesy of the anonymity of the Internet, he could participate.
He signed on to the quilting list just to see what would happen. For the first few months, he was a “lurker,” a member who read but never posted. Then he began to post brief replies, signing them with only his initials. No one knew he was a man and no one cared.
Then one day, as he checked his email after breakfast, he discovered a thread someone had started that just about knocked him out of his chair: “I just found this list and I’m wondering if there are any other men quilters out there? Not that I mind talking quilts with you ladies, but I was just wondering if I am the only guy—again.” The message was signed, “Jeff in Nebraska.”
The first response was from a woman who assured Jeff that there were several men in the group. The next four messages were from men announcing that they were proud to call themselves quilters and longtime members of the list. Another woman followed with a list of websites featuring the work of well-known male art quilters. A man from Australia wrote that he and his wife made all their quilts together. A man from Vermont wrote that he and his partner were male quilters and quilt shop owners. A woman who contributed at least one post to every discussion on the list chimed in, “Howdy, Jeff! We don’t care if you’re male, female, or a three-horned purple hermaphrodite from Saturn! You’re welcome here as long as you quilt!”
Naturally, someone then wrote in claiming to be a three-horned purple hermaphrodite from Saturn who enjoyed quilting as well as embroidery, and the conversation deteriorated from there. But enough of the original thread remained to compel Russ to introduce himself.
“Hi,” he wrote. “I guess it’s about time I explained that RM stands for Russell McIntyre. I’m a man and a quilter. I started quilting when I wanted to complete one of my late wife’s UFOs and I found out I enjoyed it. I’ve been quilting for almost three and a half years now and I’ve made nine quilts. (Four of my wife’s, five of my own.) I don’t know any men quilters in real life so it’s great to finally meet some online.”
For the first time he signed off using his full name.
He shut down the computer and went to work. By the time he got to his office and checked his email again, he had five personal messages welcoming him belatedly to the group. Three were from other men, two were from women, and each offered condolences on the death of his wife. They brought tears of renewed grief to his eyes, but he blinked them away, dashed off responses, and settled in to work.
Over the next few years, the five people who first responded to his introduction on the quilting list became close friends. They corresponded almost daily, swapped fabric and blocks through the mail, and met up at the Pacific International Quilt Festival each October. When one of the men started up a separate Internet group for men quilters, Russ signed on, but still retained close ties to the original group that had befriended him. To his surprise, he discovered that while some other men quilters had been ignored or patronized at quilt shops and guilds just as he had, others’ experiences of the quilting world were quite different. Many admitted to enjoying preferential treatment in their guilds as the only man among a host of women, and others said they were treated no differently than any other quilter. Russ could only imagine what that would be like.
His style evolved in part because of inspiration from his online friends. He continued to layer, slash, and swap fabric, but he experimented with fabric dyed in gradients and curved cuts instead of straight lines. Through his Internet contacts, he was invited to submit a piece for an exhibit at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum featuring work by men quilters. Invitations to teach his unique style of quilting followed, as did requests to submit articles to quilting magazines.
On his fortieth birthday, he sat down with his financial advisor and discovered that he could retire early and live off his Athena Tech stock options quite comfortably for at least another forty years. Finally he would have enough time to work on that book proposal an editor had begged him to submit after observing his workshop at the American Quilter’s Society show.
Soon after his book, Russell McIntyre: A Man of the Cloth, was published two years later, Russ had a solo exhibition in an eclectic art gallery in downtown Seattle. Carly and Alex came home a few days ahead of time so they could watch the exhibit being hung. Alex teased Russ at the gallery and at their celebratory dinner out afterward, calling Russ his stepdad, the great artiste, but the proud grin never left his face. On the morning before the exhibit debuted, Carly took Russ shopping and helped him pick out a new suit and tie. They both knew but did not acknowledge aloud that Elaine would have insisted upon it had she been there. Even Charlie and Christine came down from Olympia, marking the first time they had seen his work in such an impressive setting. Christine was obviously thrilled for him, but Charlie seemed perplexed by all the fuss. “They’re just quilts,” Russ overheard him tell Christine. “They’re nice, I guess, but they’re not even big enough for a bed.”
“Don’t embarrass me,” said Christine, exasperated. “This is art. They aren’t supposed to fit a bed.”
Russ was surprised to hear her snap at him, and he turned away so they would not know he had overheard. He stopped short at the sight of Francine, tilting her head as she examined a quilt. He made his way through the crowd to greet her. “Hello, Francine,” he said, unable to conceal his surprise. “Thanks for coming.” He had sent an announcement to the guild, but he had not expected anyone who remembered his fumbling attempts to join the guild to come.
“It’s good to see you,” she said. She had grown thin and her hair was gra
yer, but she had lost none of her imposing manner. “You’ve come a long way.”
He shrugged. “I had a long way to go. You were right years ago when you said I had a lot to learn.”
Francine eyed the quilts displayed on the gallery walls and indicated the many admirers with a nod. “Apparently you learned it. And to think I assumed you gave up quilting when you snubbed the guild.”
“I snubbed the guild?” said Russ, incredulous. “You’re kidding, right? They gave me the cold shoulder.”
“You came to one meeting, and did you even bother to introduce yourself?” countered Francine. “Everyone adored Elaine. If they had known you were her husband, they would have made you feel at home.”
“So that’s what it takes for a man to be accepted in that guild.”
“No one knew you were a serious quilter. Most of the members assumed you were there to meet women.”
Russ almost choked. “That’s a strange assumption, but it’s not even the worst prejudice I’ve run into in the quilting world. You have no idea what it’s like to go into a quilt shop or a quilt show and have everyone there assume I’m a blundering idiot who has to be watched carefully so he doesn’t break something.”
“Oh, I think I have a fairly good idea what that’s like. I face it whenever I walk into an automobile repair shop.”
His indignation promptly deflated. “Right. It’s exactly like that.”
She smiled. “Well. At any rate, I came to enjoy the show, but also to let you know that we would be thrilled if you would give the guild another try.”
“Thanks. I’ll think about it.” He had no idea how he would find the time, but he would reconsider.
“I also feel compelled to mention that while I liked your book, I did not care for the title.”
“It wasn’t my choice,” he said automatically, as he had done hundreds of times since the book came out. “The marketing department thought it was a clever play on words.”
“Nonsense. It makes you sound like you’ve joined the clergy.”
Elm Creek Quilts [09] Circle of Quilters Page 20