(Notice how circumspect I am in the first paragraph, letting the reader assume, as I do, that I probably bumped into this guy at a university function. Something highbrow like an art gallery tour or a lecture on great books.)
Trapunto on Broadway
I have recently become acquainted with a member of Michigan State University's physics department. His name is Mike.
For several years Mike worked on MSU's theatre department's technical crews. [Okay, it wasn't really the Broadway to which I alluded in the title, but close enough.] And during that time Mike became very good at certain things: building balconies for balcony scenes, for one thing, and making LONDON FOG. And one year he was assigned to sew some Roman armor.
Yes, sewing Roman armor for Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. As he explained it to me, the costume designer sat him down at an industrial-strength sewing machine, and Mike was instructed to sew together two pieces of heavy muslin that had been cut into armor-like shapes. He sewed around the edges of the shapes, and also on marked lines that seemed to define chest and abdominal areas. And then—listen to this—he was told to slit a little hole in the back side, stuff cotton through the hole, and sew the hole back up again. This padded out the front and voilà: funny-shaped pieces of white fabric stuffed with cotton that bore an unmistakable resemblance to—funny-shaped pieces of white fabric stuffed with cotton!
But when the front was painted with bronze metallic paint, and shading was dabbed in the valleys created by the stitching, MSU's theatre department had something that was absolutely indistinguishable from hammered metal armor.
"My gosh," I said, having been swept away by the sheer drama of his narrative, and feeling tingly all over, "that's trapunto!" Because, of course, trapunto is a technique that creates a sculpted-looking effect with fabric. It can be used on clothing, pillows, coverlets, wall hangings, or any place where three-dimensionality would be attractive. Sometimes it's enhanced by quilting.
Trapunto is made just the way Mike made Julius Caesar's armor. Let's say you want to do something unique for a special child's overalls, embellish them with an airplane on the bib, for example. When you cut out the bib pieces of the overalls pattern, cut out an extra bib piece of some other light tightly woven fabric. We'll call this second fabric the trapunto backing. Sew the bib front and the trapunto backing together along the outlines of the airplane. If you're creating something large and complicated, like a picture of a giant goose, or the University of Michigan Stadium, you'll want to create several separate areas, so your object won't be one big lump.
Then slit the trapunto backing (and only the backing) and push loose washable stuffing through the hole. Repair the hole with a back-and-forth kind of stitch to pull the two sides together. The trapunto part of this exercise is now done. You can finish sewing your project as directed in your pattern.
It may take a little trial-and-error to decide what weight fabrics to use for trapunto projects. As you can imagine, corduroy is so heavy it's harder to trapunto than cotton batiste. But corduroy and denim do work—they're just more of a challenge.
Sometimes the trapuntoed (if there is such a word) shape is used for the top of a quilted project. Then it's basted to batting and back, and outlined (for emphasis) with quilting stitches.
I once saw an exquisite trapunto quilt in a museum. It was white-on-white—white stitching on white fabric. The motif featured grapes and grape vines. All the grapes were fat with trapunto, and the vines had been trapuntoed, too, and the final effect was breathtaking.
Practically speaking, trapunto presents only one problem: it can be fragile. That slit in the back where you pushed in the stuffing is a weak spot, and that's why I recommend a tightly-woven fabric for trapunto backing. In the case of Julius Caesar's armor, Mike could fortify the repair of the hole with heavy-duty shop glue. But this is not an option for those of us who want to use trapunto on pillows or bedspreads. (Or maybe it is. It's up to you. If I were making the aforementioned airplane on the afore-mentioned child's overalls bib, I'd seriously consider a VERY thin line of flexible, water-resistant glue, since the bib will be lined and the glue won't show. A silicone household glue would do nicely.)
If you're interested in trapunto, consider doing a little bit in a small area. For example:
· The bib of a child's jumper or overalls, as mentioned above, or:
· An apron for a grown-up.
· Make a fish (or any other kind of animal) hand puppet, with ordinary quilting for the scales, and trapunto in the eyes so they really pop out.
· Embellish a Halloween costume.
· A family crest, club insignia or business logo would look sensational executed in trapunto.
· How about trapunto doves on the ring pillow for a wedding?
· An album cover for a wedding or child's pictures?
· Motifs on holiday clothing?
· A satin evening bag with flowers in trapunto?
You'll undoubtedly think of ideas that are far better than these.
Try a little trapunto. In your matching poodle skirt and sweater—with the poodle executed in trapunto and very three-dimensional—you'll certainly take center stage!
14/ Three Weddings and Two Funerals and One Christening and Quite Possibly the World's Largest Potluck Supper Ever
(or—and this was Jay Allen's whimsical suggestion for an alternate title—The Blame of the Quilt)
And then we had a summer of what I once heard a tiresome person with a degree in sociology refer to as "life cycle events."
First, Ramona's grandmother died. As you remember from the first tale in this book, it was Grandma who gave Ramona the quilt that proved to be the vital clue in my clever solution to a decades-old murder.
Grandma had felt "puny," as she put it, for several days. Ramona had a trial in Lansing, something involving a will, a suspect signature, and hundreds of dollars bequeathed to a parrot. So I stepped in one afternoon to check up on Grandma, and I didn't like what I saw: terrible color, swollen ankles, difficulty breathing. Michigan summers can be beastly, but we were enjoying a rare temperate spell, and I knew it wasn't the heat that was getting to Grandma.
Right away I called Dr. Rasmussen, old Dr. Lunt's new associate. Dr. Rasmussen is young (in his 30s), movie-star handsome, and a pretty good doctor (for a kid). He took one look at Grandma and clapped her in Jackson Hospital. She expired a few days later with what he labeled "congestive heart failure." (I told Ramona Dr. Rasmussen was right.)
Grandma's funeral took place in the Baptist Church, and about seventy-five people attended. (She was particularly well loved in her Bible study circle.) Ramona was pretty broken up about it all but, as she told me, "Grandma lived a full and good life." Sometimes that's a consolation to the survivors.
The first wedding was Alfred Pike's, of all things. The minute my visit was over, (the visit in which I pointed out to Alfred the many treasures hidden in the exquisite quilted silk robe), he stirred his stumps and made a few phone calls—to put it mildly. He had no idea who the "school chum's" alluded to in his Chinese love's note were. (His love's name, he confessed to me, was Mei Li Chen. "'Mei Li'" means "'pretty,'" he said, scuffing the toe of his shoe in his ratty carpet like a schoolboy. "'Beautiful,' actually.") In fact, Alfred had no idea which of Boston's many elite girls' schools she might have attended before World War II.
But Alfred Pike is blessed with admirable bulldog tenacity, something he picked up, no doubt, in THE US ARMY. It was merely a matter of phoning all the girls' schools in Boston and environs, and, once he found the school at which Mei Li matriculated, phoning all the alumnae who had been in her class, and all the alumnae in the classes above and below hers, until he located her four closest friends.
This took several days, and here's what he learned. Mei Li escaped from Korea by cashing in her remaining family asset, a pair of fine diamond earrings. Risking death and dismemberment, she sailed in a miserable fishing boat all the way to Japan. From there, somehow, she got herself to the Uni
ted States, where she contacted her dearest school friends—the very friends Alfred, by dint of sheer determination, located in Boston. To make a short story shorter, Mei Li reached Boston, recuperated from her journeys, visited a while, and then traveled back west to California.
Mei Li and Alfred were reunited in San Francisco's Chinatown, where she was settled and teaching English, having ultimately (and, of course, erroneously) concluded that Alfred had either not left Korea alive or had lost interest in her.
So Spotsburg was treated to a most unusual wedding. Because Mei Li's entire family had perished in the Korean Conflict, I declared she needed a new family, and I volunteered our quilting group and other interested parties. They happily agreed. As I've mentioned before, you can't keep Arden and Karen away from an activity that needs some kindly and really proficient organizing, and you most definitely can't keep Arden's husband away from good baked goods.
The wedding took place in the First Methodist Church. The bride (who was 35 and exquisitely beautiful—and criminally slim) was radiant in red: Karen and Arden made her wedding gown, a traditional Chinese silk chong sam that fit her like a second skin. We served a lovely international buffet luncheon in the church basement, featuring foods reflecting the bride's and groom's cultural traditions, including such delicacies as wonton soup and Spam. (No haggis, however. I put my foot down.)
Mei Li is now teaching one section of Chinese at State College, and Alfred looks quite beside himself with happiness. (I note parenthetically that he's also painted the house, and the tabletops have been dusted.)
Shortly thereafter, Police Officer Ted Dancer and his wife had ANOTHER baby—that makes SIX!!! I stopped by their house one evening after the baptism, admired the new baby, and gave Janet several brochures on birth control. She wrung my hands in gratitude.
Yes, Mike and I got married, and I know you're dying to hear all about it, but you'll have to wait. I'm telling you these events in the order they happened.
And then we had a murder. Yes, an actual murder, with a dead body and everything. Spotsburg hadn't had a murder in I don't know how many years. Knocking over rural route mailboxes is much more our type of crime.
Anyway, we had a murder. That, in and of itself, was pretty shocking. But the really shocking thing about it was that for a period of time certain official people (I will name names shortly) actually thought the murder weapon was a quilt! (Such a mistake would never have occurred if I'd been involved in the investigation from the beginning. But Ted Dancer—who is generally receptive to my clever suggestions—didn't have complete control over the case.)
As you know, I've been teaching quilting every Monday night for enough years so that by now every citizen of Spotsburg should have taken instruction. We meet in the high school's home economics class so those who decide to machine-piece have sewing machines nearby.
This particular July Monday, about six weeks after Albert and Mei Li's wedding, I had five beginners. (Enrollment in summer classes is never very good. March—when everyone's disgusted with winter—is my best month.)
Mei Li, for one, signed up. She told me, "Barb, I very much interest in learn your wonderful American needleworks. Especially as you have been so very nice to I." (I couldn't help noticing—with my professional eye—that pencil-slim Mei Li seemed to have gained some weight. . . .)
Shirley Moray signed up for that class, too: she was expecting her first grandchild and wanted to make a baby quilt. Beatrice Ramey and Gretel Miller were tired of bridge and wanted to try something new. (This, at first glance, was a blow to serious card-playing in Spotsburg, as they are the backbone of our competitive bridge tourneys. But I did not delude myself for even a moment into imagining their enthusiasm for quilting was likely to be long-lived. The previous year Beatrice and Gretel had an intense romance with hot-air ballooning that lasted all of three weeks.)
And there was a new citizen in our fair city, Anna Grummond.
Anna was young—a mere eighteen or nineteen. Sweet and terribly soft-spoken, thin and blue-eyed and with hair so blond it was almost white.
Right away I began to worry about her. For one thing, she had deep hollows around her eyes that gave her a hunted look. For another thing, she didn't drive, which is always, I think, a bad sign in a woman. I mean, it makes you so dependent. Her husband (she told me) had to bring her to class, and she arrived twenty minutes late for the first class, and half an hour late for the second, which seemed to mortify her, and I spent the next ten minutes reassuring her that it was all right, not to worry, I'd be happy to go over the material again, etc., etc. Then I repeated the lessons (with her apologetic interruptions), and she set to work.
I give six lessons for beginning quilters. Lesson 4, Making Your Own Bias Binding, is the most complicated. It requires some strange marking and folding of the fabric, and we always end up with strips of calico strewn all over the floor, things sewn together upside down and backwards, some swearing, and other interesting mishaps. It's a hard lesson to repeat, but I was more than happy to repeat it when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Anna walking in forty-five minutes late.
Then, to my horror, I looked her full in the face and saw her cheeks were fiery red and she had a nasty black eye a-blooming. I quickly walked over to her, slipped my arm in hers and said, quietly and firmly, "Come with me." I propelled her down the hall to the girls' lavatory, where I soaked some paper towels in cold water, and (finally remembering my nursely manners) asked if I might apply them to her face in general and to the black eye in particular.
"Please don't bother," she said halfheartedly, but she let me continue my ministrations, and after a while I urged her to lie down on the cot in the corner.
"Please don't tell anyone," she said, looking even more child-like than usual. She sounded desperate. "It was an accident. Really. I ran into a door."
That was baloney, of course. When I worked in the emergency room, entirely too many women came in with black eyes due to "walking into doors." My first impulse was to drive to Anna's house and invite her husband to lie down in the road while I practiced my parallel parking.
But the problem is that you can only do so much when you're a nurse. Telling people how to run their lives is risky. Frequently they resent your telling them their business. (It's hard for me to accept, especially since I give such EXCELLENT advice, but there it is.)
Anna eventually returned to the classroom, but there wasn't time to catch her up on everything she'd missed that night, so I just admired her project (a toaster cover in pink and gray polka dots), and asked if she needed any help. No, she said.
Quilting classes are three hours long, so we can really get some work done. At 10:00 that particular evening, everyone gathered up their fabric, bias binding attempts (successful and otherwise), rulers, pins, thimbles, needles, and thread, and left. It took me a few more minutes to collect my quilting supplies and books, which I carry to and from my house in a wicker laundry basket. Miles Cheney, the high school custodian, stuck his head in and asked some advice about a nasty-looking boil on his neck. ("Yeow!" I said. "Go see Dr. Rasmussen first thing tomorrow!") And although it was almost 10:30 when I walked out the front door to the parking lot, there was Anna, sitting on the bench in front of the high school.
"Hi!" I said, walking over to her, and quickly appraising the black eye, which was, by now, a doozy. "Do you need a ride?"
Her gaze dropped to the concrete walkway. "I think he'll be here eventually," she said. She didn't sound convinced. I hadn't met Mr. Anna, but was beginning to form a most unfortunate impression of him.
I couldn't in good conscience leave her sitting there next to the high school's empty parking lot. Besides, it was quite cool—unusually so for a summer evening in Michigan, although we Michiganders have a saying: "If you don't like the weather, wait a minute." Anyway, I insisted on taking her home, and after a moment or two of uncertainty, she accepted.
As we drove along, I asked her a couple of innocuous questions about herself—wher
e she came from—that sort of thing. But she wasn't very talkative, and (unusual for me!) I didn't learn much.
We reached her tiny white clapboard house, just down the street and around the corner from mine, it turned out, and I reviewed with her reasons why she might want to call Dr. Rasmussen in the morning about her eye, then let her out. Her house was completely dark.
My house, on the other hand, was ablaze: Mike was waiting for me and had turned on every light I owned.
"I'm hoping," he said, "to avenge my recent ignominious defeat at Scrabble." He kissed me nicely—for a person bent on revenge. "And Ramona called. She has some exciting news. She wouldn't say what."
"It must be exciting," I said. "Everybody knows I teach Mondays. She obviously forgot."
But it was too late to start Scrabble, and probably just as well, too, since Mike (unfortunately) pays attention and has recently taken to beating me with the very words I've used to beat him with, including selections from my impressive list of words containing q but no u. (Which reminds me. Have I told you about the time I beat Jay Allen by using his c to make "zwieback" on the triple word score? Of course, Jay got his revenge the next week, and the following week Arden clobbered us both.)
I was just lifting the receiver to phone Ramona, when a police siren went roaring down the street. Torn between my irrepressible interest in Ramona's "exciting news," and my uncontrollable need to know what emergency was occurring nearby, I slammed down the receiver and dragged Mike outside. We stood on the sidewalk and peered down the street.
The siren had stopped, but it was easy to see where the red flashing light was coming from—around the corner—and we strolled in that direction. It was a good night for observing the stars, Mike opined, but I first had to satisfy my curiosity. After reaching the end of our block and turning, we saw that Ted Dancer's police car was parked in front of Anna Grummond's house. A number of neighbors were out on their porches, or were standing on the sidewalk, keeping a polite distance.
The Name of the Quilt: Tales of Patchwork, Mayhem, and Murder Page 12