Violetta Craft's Arc

Chapter 21 of 65

Elowen was twelve days old and just under five pounds. The nurse had said five pounds meant home. Violetta wrote the number on a sticky note and pressed it to the corner of her sketchbook. The purple A-line sat beside it, circled, dated, marked final shape. She flipped to the swatch page. She had ordered three purple fabrics last month for a different design and none of them were right. The A-line needed a matte silk with weight, something that would hold the line from shoulder to hip without collapsing at the waist. She had never bought that kind of silk before. She did not know where to start. Jordie came in with the puppy under one arm and a mug of tea in the other hand. He set the mug down and looked at the sketch. She told him what the dress needed. She said the fabric had to be heavy enough to fall straight but soft enough to move. She said the color had to be one specific purple, not blue-purple and not red-purple. She said she had four days before Elowen came home and after that she would not have hours like this again. Jordie nodded and picked up his keys. They drove to her mother's house. Lymber was at the kitchen table with a laptop and a spreadsheet. Violetta showed her the sketch and the sticky note. Lymber closed the laptop. She said there was a supplier two towns over that carried bridal-weight silks, but the shop closed at four. Paul walked in from the garage with the twins trailing behind him. He looked at the sketch and asked how much yardage. Violetta said four. He pulled out his wallet and handed Lymber a card and said go. Lymber grabbed her purse. Jordie said he would stay with the kids and the puppy. Violetta and her mother were out the door in under a minute. They reached the shop at three-forty. The woman at the counter pulled six bolts of purple from the back wall. Five were wrong. One was too shiny. Two were too blue. Two were too thin. The sixth was a matte silk-wool blend, dense in her hand, the exact shade she had drawn. Violetta held it against her wrist and watched how it fell. She asked for four yards. The woman cut it on the wide table while Lymber paid. Violetta carried the bag to the car herself. At home she laid the fabric across her cutting table and smoothed it flat. It held the line. She pinned the sticky note above it. Four pounds fifteen ounces. Four days, maybe less. She pulled her pattern paper from the shelf and started to draft the A-line at scale. Her phone buzzed on the counter and stayed there. The scissors were already in her hand.