Once a year the guild hires a photographer. She sets up her lights in the church hall, arranges the folding chairs in three neat rows and asks, very sweetly, for everyone to smile. This is where things go sideways. The Resting Stitch Face Guild is our gathering of famous faces, patchwork faces and a few cats, all of whom share one expression: the calm, unbothered look of a quilter thinking about her next seam. The photographer tried. Here is how the rows came out.
Front row: the legends
The seats of honor went to the guild's most famous members. Mona Sewsa sits in her gilded frame with her folded hands and that famous faint smile, a vintage sewing machine on the table in front of her, which is as close to a grin as she ever gets. Beside her, a painter with a crown of flowers in her dark hair sits inside a wreath of blossoms, a patchwork quilt spread across her lap. Rosie the Binder rolls up her sleeve in her red polka dot bandana and flexes, a patchwork quilt in her other hand, and Marie FabCakes-Nette arrives in powdered curls and a blue gown, rotary cutter raised, carrying a tall cake layered entirely from folded fabric. Nobody in the front row said cheese.
Middle row: the faces
Cheeky is a round face pieced from patchwork scraps with big button eyes and rosy cheeks, and she is the closest thing the guild has to a smiler. Next to her, a patchwork flower face with blue eyes sticks out its tongue at the camera. All Tied Up peers out with purple triangle eyes and a stitched smile, Zip It keeps a zipper for a mouth under a pair of pieced triangle brows, and Stitchy Face, a soft pastel face with a little zipper nose, simply refuses to commit to any expression at all.
Back row: the troublemakers
The tallest members always stand at the back, and ours include a stack of cats. What Do You Want? is a cat face pieced from bright geometric patches with a zipper running down the middle and a look that answers its own question. And at the very end of the row, a big spool of rainbow thread has come completely unwound, loose loops tumbling everywhere, under the words Resting Stitch Face. We call that one Twisted. The photographer called it a lot of things.
Frame one for the fridge
Every guild has a member who is SO the flexing binder, one who is definitely the cat, and at least one Mona who has never been caught mid laugh in her life. Pick the face that belongs to your favorite quilter. As for the photo, it came out perfectly. The photographer is still waiting for someone to smile.
Written by Jacqueline. Thanks for reading.
