We Be Jammin'

Forty three shops, two ferry rides, and an overnight stay in Marysville later, my friend Carol and I can say that this year’s quilt shop hop was a success.

Our favorite purchase practically jumped into my arms. I wasn’t looking for it. It found me. On my way to another room, I glanced over and a cheerful yellow, blue, and red quilt in kitchen prints winked at me. Appliquéd blocks featuring canning pots, a colander filled with berries, and spoons surrounded by a scalloped edge made me grin like a fool, but the name, “We Be Jammin’” cinched it. I snatched up two quilt kits and hurried to Carol who had the same “love at first sight” reaction.

Why would two supposedly grown women react this way? Last summer was berry summer for us. Berries were following us everywhere—berry fabric, and real berries at the farmer’s market, grocery stores and farm stands. Finally, Carol asked me, “Have you ever made jam?”

I very confidently responded, “Oh yeah,” as if I’d made jam since I could reach a counter. I’d made jam once, one time, about ten or twelve years before.

At the Spooner Farm’s stand, we bought flats of gorgeous strawberries. They smelled so good we were swooning. Too many to count never made it into the jam. We got right down to business mashing, adding sugar, and stirring, admiring that deep, almost magenta red color. We sang like we were Jamaicans, “We be jamming,’ we be jammin’” as it bubbled. Things were going great.

That’s when the smoke detector went off, the first time. I grabbed a remote and pointed it at the detector. It stopped its ear-shattering shriek. Carol kept stirring. I dug a box fan out of the garage, opened windows, and the sliding glass door.

Then it went off again. This time the remote wouldn’t turn it off. None of the remotes in the house would. Funny, there was no mention of smoke detectors in the jam recipe. Carol kept stirring.

The smoke detector in my open beamed kitchen is about 14 feet up. Luckily, my husband had left the ladder on the deck after cleaning rain gutters. I very officially hauled it into the house.

Naturally at this point, the jam was ready. Carol looked anxiously at me, but I was wrestling with the ladder, so she was on her own. I knew that even with the ladder, I wouldn’t be able to reach that stupid, screaming smoke detector. I wrenched the ladder open and was heading up it with a broom. Just as I was winding up to swing and knock the insistent detector off the wall, shockingly, it stopped.

I looked over at Carol, and we both started laughing. During the crisis, she’d started filling the jars with the most delicious strawberry jam ever.

When we’re each making our “We Be Jammin’” quilts, I think we be addin’ a smoke detector, a box fan, a ladder and a broom to the quilt back.

Laura Keolanui Stark, Carol Kain, and their families are still enjoying homemade jam. Laura can be reached at lkstark@yahoo.com. (Originally published in The Herald, www.puyallupherald.com on 7/15/09.)