Picture a little glass bottle with a note rolled up inside, tossed into a mountain stream and set loose to see where the water takes it. Stitchin' Along the River is the Chic Quilter collection that follows that bottle. In every design a blue river winds through the scene like a length of thread laid across the fabric, and each place is drawn in soft, stitched-looking layers of color. Fair warning: this bottle does not follow any route a geography teacher would approve.
Where the bottle starts: snowmelt country
The trip begins up high. Colorado sends a clear stream tumbling past rocky peaks and pine forest, with a frosty mug waiting at the edge of the scene. Montana carries the water past a grazing bison beneath snowy summits, and Denali winds its river through a wide valley where a moose wanders the bank. Idaho packs mountains, rolling farm fields, a pile of potatoes and a rainbow into its state outline, while New Hampshire fills its own outline with autumn color, gray peaks and a little red covered bridge. The bottle bobs past the birch trees in the Green Mountains and floats right through the middle of Missoula and Bend, two mountain towns built along the water.
A rough ride through red rock
Then the current picks up speed. Big Bend runs its river between towering red mesas, with cactus on the bank and a roadrunner watching from the rocks. The Grand Canyon drops the water to the bottom of a deep, layered gorge in rust and gold. The bottle survives, somehow, which is more than we can say for most sunglasses.
Drifting past the river towns
Downstream the water slows and the towns appear. Greenville sends its river splashing under a graceful arched bridge, and Dubuque lifts a tiny cable car up the bluff above the water. Harpers Ferry shows two rivers meeting from high above, Hartford flows beneath a stone bridge, and Asheville drifts past a grand hilltop mansion, fall leaves and a guitar. Omaha tucks a ballpark beside its skyline, Missouri curves its river past the Gateway Arch and green fields, and Illinois runs the water from a city skyline down through patchwork farmland. Indiana looks like an actual quilt, its state outline pieced from yellow and red prints with a river stitched through the middle. Arkansas fills in green forest laced with streams, and at the very end, Mississippi carries the bottle past a pair of guitars and a field of white blossoms toward the Gulf.
Whoever finds the bottle
Maybe it is the friend who grew up on one of these rivers, or the one who still talks about that summer float trip. Somebody you know belongs to one of these places. As for the note inside the bottle, it turns out to be very short, and every quilter who unrolls it understands completely: Gone quilting. Back when the binding is done.
Written by Jenny. Thanks for reading.
