Piece of mind

By MARK SAGE/Staff

David Yates needed to relax. Doctor’s orders.
He worked a lot of hours, for a time in Florida as a personnel manager for the state and then in Savannah, Ga., as a zone manager for several Burger Kings. It was, he said, “go, go, go.” He had trouble slowing down. But with a diagnosis of coronary artery disease, he needed to. His doctor recommended getting a hobby.
So he bought an old sewing machine.
“I said, ‘I believe I can do this,’” Yates said.
That was 20 years or so ago.
At first, Yates used the machine to stitch together some doll clothes for one of his granddaughters. Then he made her a matching dress. He made other clothes, too. Another granddaughter, when she was in the second grade, needed an outfit for a colonial parade, and he provided it, the dress and the hat.
Things progressed. Yates said he saw some quilt patterns and decided to give it a try.
One of his first efforts, a quarter century old now, is on the back porch of his sister’s home in Wytheville. It was a favorite of his wife’s. It’s one he’s keeping.
Really, though, there are a lot of keepers. A half dozen or more, from stars to rag quilts, on the back porch; a personal favorite, a star within a star within a star, over a chair in the living room; a log cabin, burgundies and browns against a field of white, across his bed.
But for one quilting class at Sew What on Wytheville’s Main Street, Yates’ is a self-taught craftsman. He said there was no one but women, and him, there.
“It kind of intimidated me, I guess,” he said.
So he went it alone.
Mostly he makes up his own patterns, often combining a couple from a quilt he’s seen or a pattern he’s run across. The great thing about quilts, Yates said, is that there is not a wrong way to make them, though, he assures, there are mistakes. He said he could point out mistakes in every one of the 200 he’s made so far. Once a piece is pieced and quilted, though, most people don’t see the errors.
Besides “the mistakes are what gives the quilt its personality,” he said. “I always say it gives it character.”
Most of the quilts Yates has made have found homes with family. He made all his brothers and sisters one. His six children all have several of his quilts. All his grandkids – there’s 11 of them – and his great-granddaughter have one or more. He gives them as Christmas or birthday presents or just because. Upstairs, in a sewing room his brother-in-law built is an addition, where he keeps his sewing machine, iron and 10-foot quilting machine, big enough to quilt a queen-sized piece, he’s putting the finishing touches on a Strawberry Shortcake quilt for his newest grandbaby. He’s also working on a quilted tote for another granddaughter, the one he’d made the colonial outfit for.
Yates said he likes to work on a couple projects at once, jumping back and forth so he doesn’t get worn out on one thing. He’s also working on a blue, green and white double-wedding ring quilt, pieced together with 1x1 squares to get the needed curves. When it’s done, it’ll be his second. The first, done in reds, was given to his sister in Bland and when she died last year, it passed on to a sister in Florida.
“They say if you can do a double wedding ring, you can do any kind of quilt,” Yates said.
He’s also quilting a piece of strawberry fabric to cut for placemats and potholders.
“I just like arts and crafts,” he said.
Then there’s the Relay quilt. In pieces now up in his sewing room, it’ll be sort of like the one covering his bed, a log cabin in browns and burgundies on a field of white, but bigger. It’s a full size, named Angel of Light. All his quilts are named, all captured in a photo album his daughter has.
It used to be, he said, he could get a quilt done in three weeks. He’d come home from work and spend two, three, even four hours piecing fabric together. Time slipped away.
It takes longer now, Yates said. Some days, he’s on task. Other days, he can’t work on a project at all. His medicine has slowed him down. So too has a broken laser pointer, superglued for the time being and awaiting a replacement part, on the quilting machine.
So far, Yates has only sold two quilts.
As a hurricane set its sites on Savannah, Yates grabbed his sewing machine and some quilts on the way out of town. While evacuated he met a woman from Michigan who ordered up two quilts – one, of a corporate logo, for her son and one, a more traditional star pattern, for her daughter.
His third will be sold in May, raffled off by the Pepsi Relay for Life team.
The quilt began to form when Yates’ nephew Doug Boardwine, captain of the Pepsi team, came and asked if he’d make a quilt to raffle off. He needs it done by April 1, a little better than a month before Yates turns 65. He wants time to display it at Pepsi and to sell some raffle tickets before the Relay for Life on May 21 at Withers Park.
“As long as I can keep going,” Yates said he told his nephew, “I will get it done for you.”
If something were to happen, though, Yates said, “I’ve got a backup.”
His sister, Linda Boardwine, who quilts with him, knows how to finish the quilt, he said.
Before moving in with his sister and her husband, Yates was in hospice care in Georgia. When his wife died last year, he said he didn’t have a caregiver. For a while his sister was making two-week long trips to stay with him, splitting her time between Savannah and Wytheville. Finally, he decided to move in with her in Virginia, transferring to hospice care here. It would be a lot easier on her, he figured. It turned out, he said, to be a good move. He said he doesn’t know what he would have done without her.
Or quilting. Yates said it’s relaxing, even as you have to summon patience and concentration, keeping what you’re doing in focus. And the finished product makes a good gift.
Raffle tickets are $2 each or three for $5. If you are interested in a chance on the Angel of Light quilt, contact Doug Boardwine at 620-7476.
Contact Mark Sage at 228-6611 or jsage@wythenews.com.