Reflections on the Fifth Week of Spring

    The 16^th Country Charms Quilt Show dominated my week.

    Wednesday was easy–meet co-chair Marion to print 300 programs at Staples, bake apple and apple-blueberry pies with George wagging his tail by my feet, and gather supplies. My quilt made in a stain glass pattern and my flower appliquéd jacket went on top of the pile for quilt registration Thursday.

    At Gail's Homespun Treasures Quilt Shop I measured length and width of each submission, clipped the entry tag to the side, then placed the folded quilt in the correct size and style category.

    Late afternoon, two judges arrived. Marion, Gail, and I spread quilts for one category at a time in a pile on the table. The judges checked visual impact, design, and workmanship.

One by one judges told me to put a quilt aside. I gathered the quilt in my arms, walked over to hand Marion two corners, and reminded her not to let it drag on the floor while we refolded. At the end of judging each the category, only the prize winners were left on the table. Since Marion and I wanted all the winners hung in the front of the show, I stacked those quilts on a separate table.

    The judges inspected category 101, large pieced quilts, next to last. My mammoth purple, blue, and green quilt was second from the bottom of the pile. I turned my back so I couldn't see them examine it. I could still hear.

    “You can't see where she started and stopped her quilting.”

    “The black sashes are consistent in width and almost perfectly straight.”

    When four quilts remained, a judge said, “We've got to decide. Two have perfect scores.”

    Figuring mine couldn't be perfect, I hoped for third place. That's what I got.

    Friday morning I drove back to Gail's to wrap each pile of quilts in sheets. Mid afternoon three cars transported the quilts cross country to the Cochranton High School Gym. The winners rode in my car along with the place mat I sewed in a log cabin pattern for the guild challenge, two buckets, two dozen rags, and the box of quilt show gear. Spence followed in his truck.

    He and other husbands unloaded the PVC pipes for building racks. Women washed, dried, and sorted pipes. The men built the racks–old fashioned gender roles indeed.

   I supervised unloading the quilts to keep the winners separate from other entries then waited for the small first rack to be built.

   A quilter who'd worked on many shows yelled, “Where are the 101 quilts? A big rack is up. We can get started.”

    Marion explained we wanted to put the winners up front so we were waiting for the smaller rack.

    The complaining quilter said, “That'll take us till eight! We can't wait around that long just to put winners first. What were you thinking?”

    “You aren't in charge this year,” Marion said.

    I grabbed Marion's arm.

    The complainer stomped away.

    Finally the racks were ready. Women pulled open the sheet bundles and clipped plastic pants hangers onto quilt tops. Quilters dashed to the seven rows of racks and hung quilts. Quilters and husbands on ladders reached down for quilts to hang from the top. One woman attached the prize ribbonsguild members had handcrafted to winning quilts. Clicking hangers, thudding footsteps, and swish of fabric echoed off the gym walls.

    With every rack full, we still had eight more quilts to hang. Guild members looked to me for a solution. I folded the quilts in half lengthwise, attached hangers to the top, and handed them to the husbands on ladders to hang on the left side of cross pieces that anchored rows of racks together.

    By six, all the quilters and husbands had left. Marion and I took a break to eat then searched for the last two prize winners.

    Spence arrived and said, “George wants you to come back home.” Spence kept Marion and I company while we finished attaching ribbons, set up the guild challenge display, and put out chairs for visitors.

    Early Saturday, I lugged two pies, a long list of to dos, and my camera to the high school. By the time the show opened at nine, I'd jogged two miles over the unforgiving cement floors to hang signs, fetch supplies, and answer questions.

   “Why did you fold my quilt?”

    “Where are the People's Choice ballots?

    “May I make a suggestion?”

    When no one needed me, I took photos till my legs couldn't carry me another inch. I sat at the door prize table up front and reveled in the happy smiles on visitors' faces when they walked in and out the door.

    “You can feel the energy just walking in.”

    “Just gorgeous.”

    “This is the best show in the area.”

    My first task Sunday was to cut and set out the pies–the cranberry cheese crumb pie was hard to resist–for the women who would be a little late coming from church. Then I took more pictures and visited with three neighbors. The first two sat with me in the cafeteria. Tammy drank water, Kathy ate the cranberry cheese crumb pie, and I had a slice of my apple-blueberry. Later Catherine said my stain glass quilt was “crowd pleasing” and helped me find quilt #12, an intricate lacy entry which won the People's Choice award.

    Near the end of the show, I headed for the supply box to get the sorting numbers we tape along table edges for tear down. On the way to the box, the pie seller said, “I reduced the pies to half price.”

    “Fine,” I said. “I'll have someone make an announcement over the PA system.”

    Another voice stopped me. “Janet, will you take this bag to the country store and tell them to put my stuff in it when they tear down? I can't leave here.”

    I took the bag.

    A third guild member said. “I think we need to have a vendor liaison because I was asked by two to cover for them while they ate lunch, and I was hungry myself.”

    “Did you tell them no?”

    “Well, yes.”

    “Good,” I said, headed for the microphone, and made a mental note to have the liaison make a schedule for lunch relief next year rather than relieve vendors when they asked.

I told someone to announce the half price pies, gave the bag and message to the country store, and, passing Spence and another guild member, headed for the supply box.

    The guild member said, “Janet we need the sorting number signs.”

    I nodded. “I was on the way to get them when three people stopped me.”

    Lee, leader of the men helpers, asked, “Janet, where'd you put the mallets?”

    Spence said, “Wait. Don't interrupt her.”

    I turned to Lee, “The mallets are in the tool box on your dolly back in the corner,” then knelt by the box to fetch the sorting number signs.

    Visitors left. Guild members grabbed quilts off the lower racks. Ladder ladies dropped high-hanging quilts into waiting arms. We removed hangers, folded quilts, and placed them according to entry numbers. In minutes, all four walls of the gym came into view and racks, the ribs of the quilt show, succumbed to mallet whacks. We opened the doors to waiting quilters and returned their quilts.

    Sweaty but satisfied, I hugged Spence.

    Monday morning, I refolded my stain glass quilt, packed it in a large box, and wrote Ellen's address on top. Then I opened the judge's evaluation. I'd received a perfect score of 100 points with a plus sign beside the points for quality of quilting.

 

Reflections on the Fourth Week of Spring

    Wire rim glasses halfway down his nose and a soft smile lifting the ends of his lips, Paul, our Howard Hanna Realtor, arrived at our Cleveland house fifteen minutes early Tuesday. On his first visit in September, he'd made several suggestions in each room. This time he walked around the house and nodded. Then we sat in the back bedroom, the only room with furniture. He asked questions. Do you know of any lead issues? Are there any arguments over the property? Has the house ever been inspected for mold? Did you have water in the basement in the last five years? He checked boxes. Spence and I signed and initialed. Paul gathered the papers, slipped them into his brief case, and said, “Now I just have to put the for sale sign in the front yard and take one picture. I'll send our photographer later. I'm not good with a camera.”

    “Janet takes great pictures,” Spence said. “She can take pictures for you.”

   Paul's eyebrows rose. “Great. Email them to me.”

    Under bright blue skies, I snapped photos of the the house and the garage from several angles. Inside took longer. I scrubbed the upstairs bathroom and picked loose pile off the newly installed carpet before taking pictures of the second floor. I cleared porch clutter, swept the cement floor, washed the French door windows, and scrubbed the hardwood dining room floor before taking first floor photos.

    On Wednesday, with a badge pinned to his shirt and clipboard clutched in his hand, Steve, the Cleveland Heights Housing Inspector, arrived on time. He read aloud an item on the inspection checklist (a violation we had to correct). Spence led him to that part of the house. Steve looked at the work, checked the box, and read the next item. In ten minutes he cleared all violations.

    Two hours later, wearing heavy shoes and neat khaki work clothes, Eric, the Junk Gone Today owner, arrived. He turned off the gas to the old stove with only two working burners. His crew rolled the stove out the front door, down the steps, and to the street. They moved junk in the back of their truck then hefted–clunk, crash–the stove into place.

    Eric looked Spence and me in the eyes. “With the lever in this position, the gas is off. If you push it down,” he pushed the lever down and rotten egg odor escaped into the room, “the gas comes on. You don't want to do that.”

    Spence drove to the hardware store to buy a one-inch cap for the pipe. Since he'd forgotten his tool box, he didn't have the pipe wrench and vice grip to remove the sleeve near the end of the pipe so the cap could screw on tight. The hardware store guys agreed with Spence, and he assured me, that as long as the valve was closed, we could leave the cap off with no harm till he fetched his tools from Wells Wood.

    I opened doors to clear the air and scrubbed the kitchen walls, fridge, cupboards, sink, floor, and trim. I even removed an accumulation of crumbs and dust which had accumulated under the blade of our new, unused dishwasher. Then I scrubbed the stairs to the basement, swept the laundry room, and cleaned the back bedroom before taking more photos.

    When I walked to the truck for our ride back to Wells Wood, trim boards and a box of nails behind the house diverted me. I stowed them in the garage which Spence had cleaned and organized.

    We left the house Mom Dot clean.

    Friday, Spence made a solo trip to the Cleveland with a punch list. Gas cap was first. He also removed a branch, moss, and lichen from the garage roof, spread straw over grass seed he'd planted, and built a raised bed over the snake pit (ivy growing at the bottom of a tree). A stack of five-page brochures entitled “Presenting . . . 2389 Rinard Road Cleveland Heights” sat on the kitchen counter.

    Spence brought me a brochure. Seventeen of my color photos were artfully arranged on its pages.

    I sit and study the brochure again and again. Waiting for a buyer is the hard part.

Reflections on the Third Week of Spring

      On our way to the YMCA Thursday, my friend Cindy said, “I told Marion she was lucky you didn't hit her over the head with that big box.”

      Was Cindy serious? Tired from hours of fretting over details for the impending Country Charms 16^th Quilt Show, I stopped at the corner of Randolf and Liberty to glance at my passenger. She was serious.

      The night before I had lugged show supplies in a ten-ream-paper box to the guild meeting. Referring to four spread sheets, I stood and reviewed supplies and volunteers for each step in the quilt show event–quilt registration, judging, set up, show jobs, and tear down. Who could bring a cash box? Which women were willing to climb twenty-foot ladders to hang quilts?

      When I asked Marion, my co-chair, if she'd brought the raffle quilt sign and the quilt registration sheets, she said, “I forgot.” I scribbled notes to remind her later and continued discussing the long lists. Picking up the heavy box to hit anyone over the head never crossed my mind. What did flash across the old gray cells was whether I annoyed Marion and the other quilters with too many details.

      Their lips formed straight lines, and their eyes focused on fingernails. A new quilter said, “It will just happen. Everyone will pitch in, and it will all get done.”

Were they regretting I was a co-chair for their show? Did they just want me to shut up and the meeting to end?

      Shifting into first and letting off the break, I asked Cindy, “Don't you think I annoyed everyone with so many details?”

      “No. You were organized.”

      Back home, I sewed my project for the quilt show guild challenge–a set of eight log cabin place mats with yellow centers to symbolize a light in the window for a welcome home. I had sewn a chain of first and second logs (attach the first two pieces of fabric, sew three or four stitches without material, sew the next pair). Log by log I chained the place mats bigger and bulkier till all twenty-one logs were attached. With stitch in the ditch (quilting on seam lines), I created the log cabin pattern on the backing material. This week I attached binding to the fronts by machine and the backs by hand. I took a break from hand stitching the second place mat Saturday and lit lights to welcome Spence home from his Central Ohio tenant meetings.

 

Reflections on the Second Week of Spring

 

      I shifted the lightweight, twelve inch cardboard cube from hand to hand Easter Monday. Had Lori, my cousin who hadn't mailed a Christmas card in years, sent me a basketball? I cut the sealing tape, opened the flaps, and unwound layers of bubble wrap from a square-foot silver tin. With fingernails, I pried clear tape from each side, then opened the lid. An almond aroma filled my nostrils and a butterfly Easter card lay on top of the contents. The note in the card read,

My dearest Janet -

I was sorry to hear about your mom's passing. At any age it's hard to lose your mamma. My mom used to make Sprintz cookies sometimes at Christmas from Grandma's recipe. I was hoping Aunt Dot used the recipe, too and I could send you a tasty memory from your mom to celebrate spring.

      Nestled in crushed waxed paper were bunny, chick, and Easter egg shaped cookies. No doubt the ingredients included milk and butter–two of my forbidden foods. But Lori had made them especially for me.

Okay, I did add extra Almond Extract. What can I say? I like the taste of almond. And just like our moms baked them, I added lots of love.

      I fingered a bunny head that had broken off during transit. Just licking wouldn't bother my lactose intolerance. Would it? I popped the head into my mouth and chewed.

      WOW! Butter and almond flavor exploded on my taste buds. Saliva dissolved the cookie.

      Spit it out.

      I rolled the moist dough over my tongue, closed my eyes, and savored the taste of cookies Mom used to bake.

      Spit it out, dummy!

      Sighing, I spit the dough into a napkin and rinsed my mouth with water.

      I re-wrapped the cookies. Which offspring, Spencer Charles or Ellen, could get the cookies faster so they'd arrive fresh? Spencer Charles, who would drive to Wells Wood sometime this week, or sending to Ellen and husband Chris via Priority Mail? I chose less temptation. Besides, when Spencer Charles arrived, I could bake him cookies I could eat.

I emailed Ellen that special cookies were on the way, and she replied,

           Check. Coooooooookies incoming! I'm positive Chris will eat any and all cookies.

      Tuesday, four hours after I dropped the cookies at the post office, Spencer Charles drove his new red Cruz onto the driveway. Wednesday he defrosted Wells Wood blueberries while I mixed batter. After the blueberry drop cookies cooled on the rack, I tested one. No butter-explosion, but a warm blueberry squished in my mouth, and almond flavor tap-danced on my taste buds.

      Then Ellen emailed,

Chris' grandma died today, he won't be here to get the cookies since he'll leave tomorrow to go help his mom.

      I sent condolences and suggested Ellen take the cookies to share with Chris and family at the funeral. Thursday evening, she answered,

I just picked them up. It's been raining all day . . . hopefully they are OK.

      In a sealed tin, in layers of bubble wrap, in a box? I wasn't worried. Lori's extra almond and extra love cookies would comfort other mourners this spring.