A Quilter’s World Is Torn Apart

I realize that people don’t believe everything they read, so let me start with a money-back guarantee:

This story is absolutely, 100% true.

It’s a ‘90s tale--old-fashioned values meet cutting-edge technology. Sadly, it’s an end-of-millennium tragedy about theft and fraud, evil preying on good intention, trust defiled in a way that makes naivete seem criminal, as in, “She should have known not to hang out in a place like that, wearing those clothes, with those people--she asked for it.”

I am speaking, of course, about the Great Gidget Quilting Caper.

Gidget isn’t even her real name, I’m sure, just some Mafioso handle she uses in her underworld life. This woman stole scores of quilted blocks from innocent people--quilters, remember--worldwide.

I know, because I am one of her victims.

*

Quilting. You know, sewing little pieces of fabric together in intricate patterns to create beautiful cloths for snuggling and such. It did not die with the Amish. It is thriving, of all places, on the Internet, where there are fabrics to buy online, patterns to copy, contests to enter . . . .

Twentysomething with a penchant for crafts, I launched my nascent quilting career a few months ago with an evening class at Culver City Adult School. It cost less than $50, and they promised a quilt in a month. What could be bad?

Teacher Mary Ann was my guru. The ladies in the class were sticklers, but Mary Ann didn’t care whether my seams matched up. She lives by the 30-mile-an-hour rule: Any mistake someone can’t see while whizzing by the porch at 30 miles an hour isn’t worth fixing. Worked for me.

Enthused, I typed q-u-i-l-t-i-n-g into my Web browser. Sites galore! Among them was QuiltBee, an online guild where I could commiserate with my quilting comrades about everything from searching for Warner Bros. fabric (they apparently have it at Wal-Mart) to how to entertain children while shopping for supplies (many quilt stores have toys on hand).

This was paradise. After all, what is quilting without those warm, women’s-only heart-to-hearts like those Winona Ryder treasured in “How to Make an American Quilt”?

There are dozens of messages a day on the electronic discussion group. People pray for one another’s sick children. They make quilts for one another’s sick children! Not only did these people rush to stitch stuff for the septuplets last fall, they made gifts for the babies’ older sister, figuring she’d feel left out.

People ask questions and get good advice. They help with broken needles and broken hearts.

Best of all, they trade their art. A woman from Oklahoma embroidered the poem from my sister’s wedding invitation onto cloth for me, so I could make it the centerpiece of the wedding quilt. People swap blocks all the time: You make a bunch, send them to the organizer, and get back a mixed bag. It’s like Christmas every time you arrive home and find a “squishie” in the mail.

*

I started small, with the red swap. Just cut a bunch of red squares and send ‘em in, get back dozens of different ones. Cool.

Then I tried the monthly nine-patch exchange. I did gold, hunter green and chocolate brown in June, July and August. Neat.

By the time Gidget’s “Fall Sampler” invite flashed on the screen, I was hooked. Pick any pattern, make 12 in autumnal tones, send 11 in and end up with with a dozen different blocks that would go beautifully with my hunter green couch and all those fall-colored nine-patches I’d collected.

I decided to try “Chimneys and Cornerstones,” even though it was a little above my head. It’s basically a big X of little squares, with various colored stripes emanating from the center. Not easy. I used a bunch of different golds, greens, oranges and browns, tying them together with a wonderful leaf fabric. It took forever, but I was excited as I packed my precious one away (I admit, I kept the one with the best corners and careful seams) and sent the others off for swapping.

Weeks passed, then months. No word from Gidget. I had moved, so maybe the package got lost in the confusion. I hadn’t been keeping up with e-mail, so maybe something had happened to Gidget.

*

Ah, the sad innocence.

Gidget was gone.

E-mail came back undeliverable. America Online no longer had a record of her. We were screwed.

But quilters are a hearty breed.

We had her address in DeSoto, Mo., from when we sent her our stuff. So an angry swapper found a sympathetic quilter nearby to go knock on Gidget’s door and leave nasty notes.

Another woman did some dialing and found phone numbers for Gidget’s home and her boyfriend’s business. Someone called the police. Someone called the post office. One small-towner even contacted the Answer Man at her local newspaper.

Reports were filed, claims made, certified letters sent.

“The more people who fight, the more likely we are to get [our blocks] back,” exhorted a quilter named Casper. Gidget had “picked the wrong group of people to try to rip off,” another warned.

Turns out, Gidget had scammed not only the fall swappers, but the Blue and Cream Country Samplers and the Rail Fencers as well. Some poor souls had made blocks for all three. Gidget also stiffed the folks in her birthday group--she collected the gifts from everyone but never sent any. The nerve!

*

The owners of QuiltBee were really freaked out, afraid this would scare everyone away from future swaps. So they stepped in. Miraculously, some of the quilters got their blocks back. Trusting gals, they even organized a re-swap.

True stories don’t all have happy endings, though.

I’m still blockless. My lone fall-colors Chimneys and Cornerstones block sits folded in my fabric stash, awaiting its long-lost sampler siblings. I have nothing to re-swap. I don’t have enough fabric left to make my own fall sampler! I got my certified letter back, and I just keep hoping that one day when I arrive home, there’ll be a package from Gidget.

Doubtful.