Reflections on the Fourth Week of Winter – Haunted Quilters

Pleasantview

When I walked into the sewing room Friday morning at 8:00, quilters, looking comfortable in nightgowns and bathrobes, waved from behind their machines. Pat, the unofficial boss of our Country Charms guild, shouted, “How’s the driving?”

Everyone stopped sewing and looked up.

“Back roads are slippery, but Route 173 is clear.”

They nodded, and the hum of sewing machines resumed.

The quilt retreat at Pleasantview, a former Mennonite nursing home turned into an event center, spanned four and a half days. I could only manage one. I arranged my gear on a twelve by four foot table next to the sewing room door. Against the inside wall, eleven more tables made a line from me to the kitchen at the far end. Across the room, ten tables stood by picture windows that had a great view of the parking lot and a snowy field.

While listening to women gossip about Pat’s sister hoarding material and getting thrown out of a quilt shop for being a nuisance, I attached a light tan strips, the tenth of seventeen pieces in my log cabin blocks. By the time I’d measured, sewn, overcasted, cut threads, and ironed twenty six blocks, I had stiff knees and shoulders. I needed a break.

I pulled three dollars out of my wallet and shoved the wallet back into my purse. Leaving my name tag on my table and the purse on my chair, I turned and stepped on a pile of plastic reward cards that must have slipped out of the wallet. I scooped them up, put them back in the wallet, and shoved the wallet into my purse. Satisfied all were put away, I headed out to study items on the Chinese auction table in the hallway that led to the bedrooms. A pin cushion shaped like a bird, mountains of patterns and quilt books, a cute ceramic bunny . . .

“Janet!”

My eyes jerked from auction items to the door of the sewing room.

A quilter, from the Oil City guild, pointed to the floor by my sewing table. “You dropped your credit cards on the floor.”

“But―”

“You’ll want to put them back in your purse,” she said in a scolding voice as if I’d dragged her quilt through the mud.

“Thanks.” I walked back to the sewing room and picked up the pile of reward cards. Had they fallen out of my wallet when I shoved the others back in? Puzzled, I put the cards away, surveyed the floor, then went back to the auction table. I bought a dozen tickets to benefit Precious Paws Animal Rescue, wrote my name on the back of the tickets, and dropped four into the bag for the ceramic bunny.

“Janet!” Holding the maroon striped pillow case she’d sewn for her granddaughter, Karen stood in the sewing room doorway. “You dropped your credit cards on the floor.” Cards littered the floor by her feet.

My forehead wrinkled, and I rushed back to Karen. “This is the third time!” While I picked up the cards, I explained the first two episodes. “It’s as if a ghost were playing tricks.”

We giggled.

Joy, a quilter as delightful as her name, ambled by balancing with her cane. “Pleasantview has a ghost. My grandmother stayed here when it was a nursing home. One of the residents who died here haunts the building.”

Karen and I stared at each other. Our eyes widened and our mouths tightened.

“This time, I’m going to zip my purse shut.” I put the cards in my wallet, stuffed the wallet into my purse, and zipped it shut. To be extra sure, I set the purse inside a tote bag. After distributing the rest of my tickets in the hall, I tiptoed back. No cards lay on the floor. Zipping worked.

While I sewed a tan strip onto my log cabin blocks, quilters swapped stories about grandchildren.

“I let mine have a Popsicle for breakfast. It’s as nutritious as the juices they have for kids these days.”

“I thought you would have embroidered diapers for your grandbaby by now, Pat―the way you’ve been sewing gifts for her.”

Mixed with the conversation came the sounds of Big Ben chimes. I looked up from my machine. “Is that someone’s cell phone?”

Karen hoisted a pair of scissors overhead toward a clock with Roman numerals on the face. “It’s the clock on the wall.”

Nancy, the guild president, said, “Last night when everyone was in bed, I slept out here.” Waving purple fabric, she motioned to a recliner in the corner. “In the dark, the clock chimed sixteen times.”

“Sixteen o’clock would be four in the afternoon,” I said.

Nancy shook her head. “It was the middle of the night, and I was here all alone.” She put her fabric on the ironing table beside the recliner and picked up the hot iron. “It was real spooky, I can tell you.”

My lower back ached as if someone had slammed it with a dozen cold irons. I stood, stretched in a yoga back bend, and wondered if Nancy had counted the melody notes for the hour. That had sixteen notes, but they sounded like a song, not chimes. Hmmm.

I moseyed over to Pat’s table to ooh and aah at her baby projects―a carrier cover, a wall hanging, a receiving blanket, and burping cloths. All in pink and gray. All with elephants.

Pat threw her arms wide. “Look at all I made, and the baby’s not even born yet.” She belly laughed so hard she dropped her ruler. “The baby’s room will be decorated in pink, gray, and elephants. Can you tell?”

While I attached dark green strips to my log cabin blocks, conversation changed to the anticipated weekend snow.

“Maybe I should leave tonight before the snow starts,” someone a third of the way down the aisle said.

“We might as well stay here and sew while the roads are yucky,” Pat called from her pink, gray, and elephant table. “We can leave Sunday after the storm.”

Sue, the guild member who creates fabric landscapes in her hangings and purses, played the weather forecast on her smart phone. “The forecast hasn’t changed.” She turned the program off. “Hey! My car started in the parking lot!” She slammed her fists onto her hips. “How’d that happen? My keys are in my purse under the sewing table.”

Sitting across from Sue, Karen shrugged her shoulders and packed the maroon pillow case in a tote bag. “Maybe I kicked your purse?”

Sue ducked under the table and got her keys. “Unlikely.”

Pat belly laughed again. “It’s the ghosts. This used to be a nursing home. There must be a gang of ghosts here.”

Sue headed for the door. “As long as the car’s on, I’ll let it run awhile then check the battery.” She left to brush snow off her car.

My bottom had numbed from sitting. For another break, I stood, picked up one of my log cabin blocks, and hunted down Cheryl, a professional quilter. I asked her for advice. “What pattern would you use on log cabin blocks in a finished quilt?”

Cheryl fetched a piece of freezer paper, what quilters use to draw quilt patterns on, then sketched curves and random squiggles. “With the angular pattern of your blocks, you want to complement it with a simple loopy pattern. Several quilters stopped to look while she drew five variations.

Later that evening, I sewed gold fabric strips to my blocks, and the women transitioned from discussing weather to husbands.

“Mine will be outside with his shovel. He has a snow blower, but he says the shovel gets the walks cleaner. Can you imagine?”

“While I’m gone, mine rinses the dishes and puts them on top of the dish washer. Why couldn’t he put the dishes inside?”

“That’s nothing. My friend’s husband is hard of hearing. She told him, ‘I love you, Dan,’ and he answered, ‘What’s wrong with your feet?’”

Led by Pat’s belly laughs, the sewing room erupted with cackles, snickers, and guffaws.

Despite aching shoulders, back, hips, bottom, and hands, I laughed with the women. I’d planned to stay another hour, but I couldn’t imagine sewing another stitch. I wanted to go home to my not-to laugh-about husband, show him the ceramic bunny I won in the auction, and explain the progress I’d made on the log cabin blocks.

With my gear packed, I headed home on slippery roads through the country dark. I’d enjoyed the entertaining day with the quilters. And if a ghost played any more tricks―fine with me. I could hear about it at the next guild meeting.

My Sewing Station

Reflections on the Third Week of Winter – The Western Wind

The flow of a rich narrative voice in The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey drew me in from the first page. But the table of contents, starting with day four and ending with day one, made me reconsider. Did I want to read a backward story? Because Spence had given me the novel for Christmas, I read.

Harvey sets her character-driven mystery in Oakham—a poor, tiny, English village—during February 1491. Time plays a huge role.

First, the plot couldn’t hold together without Middle Age beliefs and religious hierarchy.

Second, the main character, the priest John Reve, reflects on time being circular and reversible. His sister Annie told him he didn’t need a miracle to bring his mother back to life.

. . . here’s how you make her alive. There was a woman, Agnes Reve, who died in a fire; eight years before that she had a daughter, seven years before that she had a son, who became a priest. A year before that she married a laborer with narrow shoulders and no humor; for seventeen years before that she lived peacefully with her own mama and father and sisters . . . and she was born. There . . . she’s once more alive. ( p. 190)

Third, Harvey structures the novel backwards, forwards, and circular. The first sections read morning to night day four. The second section reads morning to night day three. The third day two, and the fourth day one. The ending circles to the beginning.

The very last scene shows John Reve promising to save his parishioner. But the reader knows from the days to follow, which already occurred in the novel, that this is not true. The flawed priest conceals evidence to protect himself. The evidence condemns Oliver Townsend.

Though confusing at first, the structure is essential for the novel. If written chronologically, the story would hold no mystery. The first scene would explain the death. Even more, each scene adds depth to the future the reader already knows thus intensifying character development.

Learning about characters this way makes revelations about the narrator John Reve more powerful. He portrays himself as the link to God for the common man. But John is flawed. He hides the truth. He lets Sarah expose her breasts to him repeatedly. He protects himself at the expense of his parishioners. He pretends to sleep instead of fulfilling Newman’s request for last rites.

John also feels God is testing him so he requests God send miracles to prove God wants John as a priest. The public test—a miracle to convince the dean and town that Newman is on his way through purgatory quickly—John stages himself. The private miracle—a western wind—is answered before the reader knows to wonder.

The first thing I noticed was the wind, which was strong, bitter and easterly. (p.4)

At the beginning, the reader accepts this as scene setting until reading further. Because of the wind, midway through the second section, day three, I suspected John was at the heart of the mystery.

Reading Harvey’s novel drenched me in the soggy ham, the waterlogged fields, the rushing river, the constant rain. Harvey is a master at weaving in the setting and sensual references.

Smells: Cecily Townsend “smelt confusingly of lavender and dung.” (p.107)

Tastes: The cooked goose tasted “. . . oily and sapid [strong pleasant] and rich.”(p.89)

Sounds: “A robin chirruped in the churchyard. Rain tink=tinked at the windows. (pp. 191-192)

Touch: “Only the wind itself was dry, dry and so cold, and blowing away long days of rain.” (p.5)

Sight: “The horsetails tied to the branches were soddenly clumped and the yellow velvet so joyous when it went up in summer, hung heavy and burnet.” (p.281)

But naming characters isn’t Harvey’s strength. Townsend, a dairy farmer and poor business man, is about to be accused wrongly of murdering Newman, the widower, free thinker, and owner of most of the villagers land. These characters are distinctive, but I mixed their names constantly forcing me to reread for clarification. Perhaps the half rhyme and the two syllable rhythm caused the confusion. More likely the first names contributed. 

Oliver Townsend and Thomas Newman.

If I’d connected that Townsend was the long term resident of the village and Newman was the man who moved into the village after his daughter and wife died, my confusion would have cleared.

I’m passing the novel onto Spence with the hopes we will have many discussions while he reads.

Reflections on the Second Week of Winter – Ups and Downs with Mr. Hooper 

Spence and His Portable Greenhouse

Spence, with a springy step, toted the carton containing pieces for his portable greenhouse to the south garden. I watched my husband through the sliding glass door of our warm great room. He set the carton beside the black plastic he’d spread on the ground and pulled out pieces of hollow steel tubing―curved, straight, and connectors. Like a child with a box of Tinkertoys, he fitted a connector between two curves and held the half hoop at arm’s length for a moment. Setting his construction on the black plastic, he rummaged in the box for more pieces.

I fetched my camera and bundled for a sun-peak-a-booing end of December Sunday. Then I ambled outside to take pictures of Spence. The shutter release clicked breaking the silence of his concentration on steel pieces. After connecting the half hoops with jointed legs, he attached two pairs of hoops and legs with five side pieces.

My chilled nose and toes convinced me I’d been outside long enough. I put the cap on the lens and walked toward the house.

Spence looked up. “It’s good you’re here. You can help me put the cover on.” He attached the fourth hoop to complete the 11.5 by 6.5 by 6.5 foot frame and fetched the heavy plastic cover―clear with crisscrossing, green reinforcement strands.

Together we unfolded the cover. Stepping inside the greenhouse, we reached outside the frame to hold the opposite ends of the cover then lifted. The cover snuggled against the side of the curved hoop. We tugged. The cover slid up an inch. We adjusted our grips and tugged again. The cover moved a half inch.

Spence frowned. “Maybe the two of us can’t do this.”

With experience pulling new pantyhose over damp-after-swim legs, I gritted my teeth. “Of course we can.” I pulled harder and the cover slid half a foot. “But having our grown nieces and children here would help.”

Adjusting and readjusting our grip on the plastic, we tugged the cover, inch by inch, over the frame. Then we aligned the seams in the cover with the steel supports and fastened the cover to the frame with Velcro ties. Grinning wider than a jack-’o-lantern, Spence paced inside his greenhouse.

I left him placing cement blocks on the bottom edges of the cover. While I warmed up inside and downloaded photos, he carried plant shelves from the deck to his greenhouse, set a small table beside the shelves, and placed a thermometer on the table.

His grin hadn’t diminished by the time he opened the front door and toed off his boots. “My winter greens are ready to go out. NOW.” Spence pointed to the chilly basement where trays of kale, bok choy, tatsoi, and mizuna nestled under plant lights. “But I need to monitor the temperature first. I don’t want to kill the seedlings by setting them out too soon.”

Bok Choy and Mizuna Seedlings Waiting for the Greenhouse

The next day, New Year’s Eve, dawned cloudy. Despite an all day rain, Spence slipped into his boots, grabbed a stocking knit cap, and picked up a temperature/humidity gauge. “I’m going to visit Mr. Hooper.”

The Sesame Street character? I scrunched my forehead. “Mr. Hooper died in the 1980s, Spence.”

He turned the door knob and shook his head. “Not the character. My hoop house. Mr. Hooper.”

An hour later he returned and announced, “I had fun in there with the shelves―even though it doesn’t have any plants.”

After dark, while others prepared for New Year’s Eve celebrations, Spence took off his work clothes and settled on the sofa with his clipboard. He sketched designs of stakes and ties to better secure his hoop house to the ground.

About ten o’clock, wind chimes clanged, rain pounded the roof, and a south west wind howled around our log house.

Spence put his designs on the coffee table, fetched his pocket flashlight, and stepped out the door.

I swallowed a mouthful of celebratory popcorn and called after him. “Where are you going in your long underwear and stocking feet?”

He stuck his head back inside, and, with an expression that meant isn’t it obvious, said, “I’m gonna check on Mr. Hooper.”

“In the rain? In the dark?”

He held up the flashlight. “I can see from the deck.”

Wind gusted, rain slanted onto the porch, and Spence came back with soggy socks. To the tune of “The Star Spangled Banner,” he sang “Mr. Hooper’s still there.”

Stifling a laugh, I went to bed.

Spence’s sneeze woke me, and the clock chimed midnight. “Happy New Year,” I told him.

He didn’t return the greeting. In a deflated voice he said, “The hoop house blew down.”

“How do you know?” I peaked around the curtain. “It’s dark.”

“I heard it crash at eleven. I checked with the flashlight.” He sighed. “It’s flat.”

New Year’s morning, I checked Weather Underground for the wind speeds on New Year’s Eve. At 11:00, the wind blew at 22 mph (35 kph) and gusted at 39 mph ( 63 kph). In the next hour, wind speed increased. Not a normal rain storm.

Downed Hoop House

I took my camera outside, moved half a dozen cement blocks, and photographed the downed hoop house. It looked like the deflated plastic holiday figures littering neighbors yards. Could Spence put the pieces back together? Would his stake and tie plan provide enough grounding?

While I downloaded my photos and watched through the sliding glass door, he trudged to the wreckage. Spence studied the hollow steel tubes, examined connections, and checked the cover. A half hour later, he carried the cover to the basement, walked upstairs, and, in a matter-of-fact voice, gave a report. “The plastic is intact. All the connecting pieces are broken. Seventy-five percent of the steel pieces are bent and unusable.”

“Do you want to reorder the support pieces from the company?” I opened my email receipt file to find the company’s information.

“If we replaced them, we’d have the same problem.” He stared out the window at the shelves toppled onto their sides. “The design is fine. The hollow steel pipes are not.” His gaze changed to the end of the south garden. “The kiwi trellis is higher than the hoop house and didn’t get any wind damage. It’s made of PVC pipes and joints. He left the great room saying, “The hoop house has become a project. I’ll replace the hollow steel pipes with PVC.”

“Yeah!” I cheered.

He came back into the room. “No. Boo.”

For three days, Spence tinkered and made trips to Home Depot. He emailed our son Charlie warning him not to hit the sawhorses at the end of the gravel driveway.

Sawhorses?

Spence Heating PVC

A sawhorse and plywood contraption greeted my return from a Pennwriters meeting Saturday. Spence, wearing safety glasses, bent over the contraption. With gloved hands, he moved a ten inch section of a PVC pipe back and forth above a heat gun spewing hot air and a whooshing noise.

“Just in time,” he said. “I’m curving the last of eight hoops.”

“You’re working out here in the cold?”

“Yeah. I didn’t want to burn anything down―like the porch or the house.”

After exchanging the bag of writing folders for my camera, I gaped at his persistence. Heat and bend. Heat and bend. Heat and bend the rigid PVC pipe. He heated until the pipe turned taffy consistency. Section by section, he curved the five foot pipe then tucked it into his homemade frame. He pushed the last pipe close to the frame with a line of shims. “The pipes aren’t pretty, but they might work.”

Inflexible PVC pipes replacing pencil-point-thin steel tubes that I could bend with my bare hands? Of course his new frame would work.

“The next test . . .” Spence turned off the heat gun. “. . . is whether the plastic cover will fit over the PVC frame.”

Meanwhile, in the chilly basement, six flats of winter greens wait. Their roots poke through bottom drainage holes while their leaves stretch toward grow lights. And Spence started four more flats of greens.

Last Hoop in Frame