Make Quilts Not War

chapter 8



“Let me get this straight,” Harriet said as she drove her carload of Loose Threads to the exhibit. “We have to hang some of the quilts in the auditorium where the music and other entertainment will be going on?”

“And a few brave volunteers are allowing their quilts to be hung outside on the walkway where the food vendors are,” Aunt Beth added.

“Is anyone besides me worried about how well the quilts will be protected in those two places?” Harriet pressed. “What about the white glove people?”

She meant the volunteers who wear cotton gloves to protect the quilts from body oils when they turned the edges of displayed quilts up to reveal the back side for anyone who asked.

“I suppose they’ll have a group of volunteers willing to tolerate loud music,” Aunt Beth speculated.

“I know Marjory asked for utilitarian quilts to hang in the food area,” Mavis said from the back seat. “I brought her one that Curley chewed when she first came to live with me. I cleaned it and repaired the corner. Marjory said that was fine.”

Curly was the rescue dog Mavis had adopted.

“There’s Robin’s car,” Connie said and pointed out the side window as Harriet turned into the Foggy Point Exhibition Center parking lot. She found a spot two spaces away from Robin’s minivan. DeAnn and Robin got out of the van when Harriet’s car stopped.

“Hi, everyone,” Robin called out. “We weren’t sure where to go, so we decided to wait for you all to arrive.”

“Where’s Jenny?” Harriet asked.

“She called and said she’d drive herself,” DeAnn said. “I guess she has somewhere to go afterward.” She shrugged.

“That’s weird,” Mavis said. “She told me her husband was on a trip with her son, and she was looking forward to having no obligations for the next week.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean she wasn’t going to plan anything until he got back,” Aunt Beth said. “She just doesn’t have to serve scheduled meals.”

“Oh, she gets to live like you and me, huh?” Mavis said, and the two friends laughed in a knowing way.

“Popcorn and pickles,” Harriet added.

Carla looked confused.

“What’s that mean?” she asked and blushed.

“When I was growing up and was sent to stay with my aunt, we would have popcorn and pickles for dinner at least once each time my uncle Hank was away on a business trip.”

“Why would you do that on purpose?” Carla asked, still obviously confused. “My mom and I ate combos like that just before we ran out of food.”

No one knew what to say. Carla’s face got redder as she realized she’d said something wrong, but still didn’t understand what.

Aunt Beth put her arm around the young woman.

“They wouldn’t, sweetie. It’s a poor joke by two people who’ve never wanted for food in their lives. We should be more sensitive.”

“So, did you eat that or not?” Carla pressed, still confused.

“Yes, we did,” Harriet said. “Not because we had to, though. I’ll tell you all about it later. You want to help me unload a couple quilts from the back of my car? When they put out the call for quilts for the food area, I got to be one of the drop-off points.”

“Did I miss anything?” Jenny asked as she walked up to the back of Harriet’s car, her quilt held tightly in her arms.

“We just got here,” Harriet said. “These are some of the quilts Marjory rounded up for the food court.”

“I’m supposed to meet with the two volunteers who are going to stand with my quilt when I’m not there. They’re also helping hang quilts, so we thought we’d meet here.” Jenny said.

“We better go inside,” Aunt Beth called with a glance at the darkening sky. “It looks like it’s about to start raining.”



Harriet and the Threads joined the women assembled in the exhibit hall, where they were divided into groups and given instructions on how to hang their assigned quilts. Jenny took hers and followed the two volunteers and another woman from the show committee.

Her quilt would be hanging in a place of honor in an alcove created from black curtains and with a raised plywood platform. Jenny or one of the other volunteers would stay with it and answer questions about not only about her quilt but pieced quilts in the sixties in general.

“Hey,” Lauren said to Harriet an hour later. She’d just come into the building, shaking the rain from her jacket as she took it off. “I had to work with my client,” she explained. “Did you know Colm Byrne is setting up in the next building? Not his flunkies, the man himself.”

“Really?” Carla said.

“Would I lie to you?” Lauren shot back.

“Can we go see?”

“It’s your lucky day, honey,” Mavis said. “Marjory’s bringing a cart full of quilts for us to take to the auditorium and hang.”

“I’m going to see if Jenny’s done,” Harriet said. “This may be our only chance to see Colm Byrne.” She went to find their friend, returning minutes later with Jenny in tow.

“Is that little guy tuning the guitar Colm?” Carla whispered when the group had reached the auditorium.

They stretched their first quilt open and held the edges of the hanging sleeve so that Mavis and Connie could slip the rod that would suspend the quilt into it.

“I have to admit, he looks bigger on TV,” Mavis said. “Not that I’ve spent a lot of time watching him, mind you, but he’s been interviewed on all the local morning shows this week.”

“I must have missed that,” Jenny said, unfolding a cathedral window quilt made from small-scale floral prints in mauves and pinks. “Then again, I was never into that sort of music.”

“Not even in the sixties?” Harriet asked.

“Not even then,” Jenny said and cringed as someone struck a loud and discordant note on a guitar. “I wanted to grow up to be a concert pianist. I listened to classical music.”

“Wow,” Carla said.

“I listened to a lot of classical music when I was young, but only because it was part of my parent’s carefully orchestrated plan for my education,” Harriet said. “I also had to learn how to play piano and cello. I listened to grunge bands whenever no one was looking.”

“I thought my childhood was weird,” Lauren said, “but you definitely have me beat.”

“What was so weird about your childhood?” Harriet asked.

“We’re talking about you, Miss I Played Piano and Cello While I Was Still in Diapers.”

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault I was an overachiever by proxy.”

“He’s staring at us,” Carla said in a hushed voice.

“No, he’s not,” Lauren said. “He’s practicing his come-hither look. It’s kind of creepy, if you ask me.”

“Can you gals help us here?” Aunt Beth asked.

“If you can tear yourself away,” Mavis added.

“Why do you have to have so many helpers?” Carla asked Jenny as they prepared a red-and-yellow patchwork crib quilt to be hung.

“The committee chose several quilts that represent the styles of the times to be displayed on those raised platforms. We all have to answer questions about the style of our quilt and quilting in general during the sixties. They finally found a polyester double-knit quilt that looked decent and wasn’t too heavy to hang without sagging. One of the Small Stitches quilt group had one that was four-inch squares in crayon colors that had been tied with yarn. The yarn ties were also crayon colors that coordinated with the squares.”

“That sounds kind of cool,” Harriet said.

“It wasn’t actually done in the sixties,” Mavis said knowingly. “Joyce’s mother had cut all the squares but never made it up. Joyce put it together and did the yarn tying.”

“Still sounds interesting,” Harriet said.

“Do you have any more wigs with the costume leftovers?” Jenny asked. “The Small Stitches are all wearing polyester outfits and doing their hair up in beehives. My two teammates want to coordinate, and they were hoping to find afro wigs like the one I have.”

“I do still have wigs, and if we comb the curls out, they’ll match. Tell them to drop by, and I can fix them up.”

“Thanks,” Jenny looked around to see if the other two were still in the auditorium, to no avail. “I’ll let them know.”

The music got louder as they continued hanging quilts.

“Can I borrow you ladies for a minute?” asked a skinny man with three lip-rings and a graying goatee that sported two small braids with a turquoise and silver bead at the end of each one, giving him a devilish look. He wore a black T-shirt with Colm Byrne written in large orange letters diagonally across the front and a schedule of tour dates on the back. His bare forearms were covered with blue butterflies, Indian gods and, on his left arm, the word peace with a stylized peace symbol inside the C. Harriet guessed he was a manager of some sort.

“We need a row of people so we can fine-tune the lighting angles. We’re used to playing much bigger venues, so we have to experiment a little and see if we’ve toned it down enough.”

“I think our star couldn’t stand it that we didn’t immediately drop our quilts and run to the stage as soon as he strummed his first chord,” Lauren whispered.

“We’ll finish hanging our last two quilts, and then we’d be happy to help you out,” Connie answered for the group, using her best first-grade-teacher voice.

The man turned and went back to the stage, proving that even a road-hardened tour manager wasn’t immune to its effect.

“I’m going to go find the restroom,” Jenny said when the last quilt was up and the group had started toward the stage.

“I’ve never been in the first row at a rock concert,” Harriet said and sat down in the middle of the row.

“I’ve never been to a rock concert at all,” Carla answered in a hushed voice.

“Not even at the county fair?” Lauren asked.

Carla’s face burned scarlet.

“We never had the money when I was little, and then I had Wendy.”

“We’re going to fix that,” Lauren said, not bothering to whisper. “And I don’t mean this aging has-been.” She gestured toward the stage, and Harriet reached out and pushed her hand down.

“Would you be quiet! He can hear you.”

“And I care why?” Lauren shot back. She turned back to Carla. “When someone really good comes to the Tacoma Dome I’m getting you tickets. If Terry isn’t in town, I’ll take you myself.”

Carla’s boyfriend Terry was in some sort of military intelligence group that meant he came and went at unpredictable times, doing things he couldn’t talk about.

Lauren settled back into her seat.

“Since when did you take over Carla’s social education?” Harriet asked her.

“Since you’re too busy with all your boyfriend drama to help her out. And I can’t see your aunt or Mavis taking her to a concert.”

“That’s the truth,” Mavis affirmed.

Further conversation was made impossible as Colm Byrne strode onto center stage and strummed the opening chords to one of his hit songs, dramatically raising his arm after each stroke. A black-and-orange dragon covered most of his arm; a stylized peace symbol was worked into the dragon’s shoulder. He pranced and danced and belted out song after song, one running into another, while the sound man adjusted speakers, and the lights bounced behind him and in front of him and twice hit the quilters straight in the face, blinding them momentarily.

Harriet wondered, and not for the first time, why Irish and British singers didn’t seem to have an accent when they sang, and yet were sometimes almost unintelligible, their accents were so thick, when they spoke. She decided that if she got the chance to talk to the manager again, she was going to ask.

The show went on for a full twenty minutes before the skinny man raised his arm, made a circle in the air and then drew his hand across his neck. The music stopped as quickly as it had begun.

“Everybody good?” he asked, looking first at the men gathered around the soundboard, located in an enclosure halfway up the center seating section, and then into the wings and to the back of the auditorium at the lighting managers.

“Okay, then, there’ll be a taco bar set up in the big truck at seven. Until then, try to get some rest—we’ve got a full schedule coming up.”

Byrne went off the left side of the stage, only to reappear in the far aisle at the seating level moments later.

“What did you ladies think?” he asked as he approached Harriet, Carla and Lauren, who were still in their seats. Mavis and Connie and Aunt Beth had gone the opposite direction to straighten the last quilt they’d hung before being drafted as audience. The words rolled off his tongue with a charming lilt.

“That was great,” Carla gushed, her face lighting up.

“We were just discussing the fact that Carla’s never been to a rock concert before,” Lauren said. “You’re her first.”

“I hope I didn’t disappoint,” he said with a slight bow.

“It was…amazing,” Carla stammered.

“I’m surprised someone of your…” Lauren searched for a word.

“Renown,” Harriet supplied.

“Yes, someone of your renown would come to such a small town event as our sixties festival,” Lauren finished.

“Normally, I wouldn’t,” Colm said with a practiced smile. “As you can see, we’re equipped for a much larger venue, but when an old friend calls, what can you do?” His Irish accent seemed to get stronger as he spoke. “Wait here a second.”

He jogged to the side door to the stage, opened it and spoke to someone on the other side. He returned with three lanyards, large yellow cards swinging from their ends.

“Here you go, ladies,” he said. “They’re good for any of the performances. Come back beforehand and meet the band before we go on.”

“Thank you so much,” Carla said, gushing enough for all three of them. Harriet said a polite thank-you, and Lauren managed a tight smile.

“I suppose this means we have to go now,” Lauren said when Colm was gone.

“What an ingrate,” Harriet shot back. “Lots of girls would toss their panties on stage for this privilege.”

Lauren hit her shoulder, but Harriet just laughed.

“Where have you been?” Lauren demanded of Jenny when they had rejoined the group. She had just come up from the back of the auditorium.

“I ran into the quilt history chairman, and she wanted to go over our information with us again. Now she formally wants each trio to dress alike. And she wanted to be sure we didn’t overlap on our stories. I tried to reassure her that I didn’t have the slightest inclination to talk about mustard-yellow polyester or peach-colored shell shapes, but I guess the trio with the Amish quilt wants to tell the entire history of hand-quilting and how their quilt fits in the whole picture.”

“Are they wearing Amish costumes?” Harriet asked.

“They are, and before you ask, no, none of them is Amish.”

“Isn’t that sacrilegious?” Lauren asked.

“Perhaps,” Jenny said. “But fortunately for the organizers, there aren’t a lot of Amish in northwest Washington to call them out on it.”

“I’ll be glad when this is all over,” Connie said with a sigh. “I’ve got to make baby quilts for the unwed mothers group. We’ve got three girls having their babies next month, and one is having twins. And this bunch didn’t take to quilting the way our Carla did.”

“I think we’re done here for the day,” Aunt Beth announced. “Everyone ready to split?”

Harriet looked at her aunt.

“I’m practicing the lingo of the times, honey,” she said and laughed.

Harriet shook her head. It was going to be a long week.