I anticipated a quiet weekend with my daughter Sharon and her three daughters before I received the phone call.
“Katie, tell your grandmother what you want to do when we come,” Sharon prompted.
“I want to make cookies and have a tea party,” third grader Katie said.
“I want to work on a t-shirt quilt,” my daughter said. I assumed the older two would read books, swap secrets and play on their phones.
I was so wrong.
Sharon showed up with a huge tote filled with her husband’s and son’s t-shirts. We cleared the dining room table and slapped down the cutting mat. She grabbed the rotary cutter and began cutting shirts.
I watched her repeatedly count inches, “Use masking tape to mark the cutting lines,” I suggested. With that hint she quickly slashed dozens of shirts for the memories to keep. The rest overflowed our trash bin. Our living room floor disappeared as she laid out t-shirt blocks for the quilt.
“Now sew them together a row at a time, then sew the rows to each other. Use this Kenmore sewing machine that we just fixed. It sews like a dream,” I lifted the portable onto one end of the dining room table. My husband sat on the other side with another machine that needed repairs.
Meanwhile back in the sewing room, Caroline, a 10th grader, perused my stash of fabric. She came with plans to make a block quilt pattern. “I need more fabrics,” she mused.
“Well you might find something in my antique and vintage fabric,” I opened the box.
She pulled white fabric printed with large red lobsters. “I want to make shorts out of this. Can we?”
“I think so. Shorts only take a couple hours,” I coached her through cutting and sewing the shorts. She tried them on. They did not fit. I let out the seams, added a placket so she could button the shorts after pulling them on, trimmed down the top of the waist to fit her petite, curvy figure, made button holes and added lace to the hem. It only took three or four more hours.
Daisy, an 8th grader, sat in front of my unfinished, wooden doll house, arranged furniture and sewed dollhouse accessories: pillows, tablecloth, and a lace edged rug.
In the kitchen, Katie and I made chocolate chip cookies. She scraped cucumbers for cucumber sandwiches and helped her mom make ham and cheese pinwheels. I made jam tarts like my grandmother made for me. Three lemon-ginger tea bags in a fancy teapot, a fancy tablecloth covered with pretty dishes, and she had an afternoon tea/supper.
In between meals, I coached Daisy as she made a reversible bag with handles. She did all the cutting and sewing. The look of pleased accomplishment on her face paid me for my time, trouble and fabric.
Daisy went through the pantry and freezer to make spaghetti for dinner.
Sharon stayed up past midnight to finish the top of the t-shirt quilt. The next day she sewed it to the backing, cut and sewed her brother’s handful of t-shirts into a quilt top, made a baby doll quilt from leftover t-shirts and cut her son’s shirts for his senior year t-shirt quilt. She sewed past midnight the next night.
Katie declared, “I want to make two pillowcases.” I guided her hands as she sat at my grandmother’s black sewing machines. She tried the serger, veered off course and created a mermaid tale on one pillowcase. She made a tote bag for herself and a smaller one for her doll. Daisy showed her how to make several Barbie doll pillows. She made a small t-shirt blanket and matching doll blanket.
In the living room and dining room, Caroline and Sharon arranged and quickly sewed together the pastel quilt blocks until it was past time to go.
Katie collected all her completed projects. Caroline walked out wearing lobster shorts. She left the quilt for me to finish. Daisy carried her tote bag. Sharon tucked the t-shirt quilts into her car and headed home.
I looked the sewing room at the explosion of fabric, closed the door, cleared the couch, collapsed onto it and did not move again for the next three hours.
Joan Hershberger is a former reporter for the El Dorado News-Times, a collector of fabrics and sewing machines and sometimes writer of columns.