Christmas at the Village Sewing Shop

by Helen Rolfe

Genres: Siblings; Holiday Romance

Synopsis

'The perfect festive read!' DEBBIE JOHNSON

'Full of festive spirit and intriguing family secrets!' HEIDI SWAIN

Can three sisters stitch their family back together?

Loretta loves running the little village sewing shop in Butterbury. Some of her most precious memories are sitting with her three daughters Daisy, Ginny and Fern, stitching together pieces of material - and their hopes and dreams.

But this Christmas the family is coming apart at the seams: Fern feels like she's failing at motherhood and marriage, Ginny's passion for her job as a midwife is fading, Daisy is desperate to prove she's changed since her wild younger years - and most of all, Loretta seems to be hiding something ...

As they come together to create a new festive quilt, the bond between the sisters begins to heal. But when Loretta reveals the real reason she's brought them all home, can the sisters mend the quilt, and their family, in time for Christmas?

Full of kindness, community and festive magic, this is a treat to curl up with this Christmas! Perfect for fans of Cathy Bramley, Jenny Colgan and Ali McNamara

Release date: October 14, 2021

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 368

Sample

‘Ouch!’ Loretta gasped.

Daisy snatched a tissue from the box on the counter in the Butterbury Sewing Box, the sewing shop that had been in the family for over seventy years. ‘You’d think in all the decades you’ve been sewing you could manage to hem some curtains without causing an injury.’ She covered her mother’s finger, soaking up the blood. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘I’m the parent. Shouldn’t it be me asking you those sorts of questions?’ Loretta at least had an excuse to frown now she’d hurt herself. With everything she had on her mind it was difficult to keep up the pretence, keep smiling and act nonchalant.

Daisy rolled her eyes, something the youngest daughter of the Chamberlain family had well and truly perfected. ‘I’m thirty-one, Mum. It’s time to let me be a grown up.’

‘Mothers never stop worrying.’

Daisy shook her head and got on with opening the cardboard box that had come in this morning’s delivery. The shop had had a happy life here in the village of Butterbury, so had Loretta, but with what she’d discovered a couple of months ago the fabric of their very existence might well be about to fall apart, and she wasn’t sure that even with the strongest of thread and the best skill in the world she’d be able to stitch it back together this time.

Loretta got a plaster from the first-aid kit they kept out the back of the shop and wrapped it around her finger. She caught sight of herself in the oval mirror against one wall and hoped that by looking into it she’d get herself together enough to convince Daisy or anyone who came into the shop that she had nothing to worry about, her life was easy, an absolute dream. Isn’t that what everyone was trying to do these days? Sharing only the nice parts on social media, the parts that made it look as though life was a breeze.

Loretta scrutinised her appearance. Her hair had gone grey but it had held onto its volume and enough bounce that she could get away with wearing it just below her collarbones. Cut in choppy long layers and parted to one side, it hid some of the lines that had begun to appear, and a pair of thick-rimmed dark glasses hid the frown that seemed to have deepened between her eyebrows. But if it got much deeper she might need some of those clever filters Daisy talked about – the ones you could use in photographs to make a person look as though they had flawless skin, brighter eyes. Loretta’s mum, Rebecca, had always been about growing old gracefully, told Loretta that any lines and wrinkles that appeared on the face and body were signs of a life well lived and they should be grateful and proud of every single one. Loretta knew where she was coming from but, at sixty-five, she wasn’t quite ready to let age and gravity get the upper hand.

She went back to the front of the shop and, with her guard up and hopefully the worry erased from her expression, finished hemming the curtains and did her best to drag her mind from fretting about Daisy or either of her other two daughters. She knew that what she had to share with Fern, Ginny and Daisy was going to come as a shock, but she also knew she wouldn’t be sharing the news quite yet. She wasn’t ready and wasn’t sure she ever would be. This was one Christmas revelation that wrapping paper and bows couldn’t make any better.

Curtains finished, Daisy managed the inside of the shop while Loretta took a stepladder out to the front and got on with the task of cleaning the mullioned windows. In the summer months they barely needed much attention, come autumn it would be a weekly job at least, but now, in the winter, it seemed the wind and the rain had it in for them and every morning she liked to give the frontage a once over to keep it looking as inviting as always. A family business was different to working for someone else, it instilled an extra sense of pride.

She felt the bite of cold and worked quickly using the hot water from a bucket and the sponge to do the glass and the wooden frames before climbing up the steps to wipe the iron-bracketed oval sign depicting the name of the shop with ‘Est. 1948’ written in italic beneath, which was a regular bird perch and thus saw the birds leaving behind the odd treat. The moment she was finished, she hurried back inside with the bucket of water and the cloth and then the stepladder. ‘It’s freezing out there. Arctic!’ It didn’t help that she’d nipped outside without buttoning up her coat or putting on a scarf. She’d thought she’d be fine in a chunky woollen sweater and a pair of fingerless gloves.

‘Why do you think I didn’t volunteer?’ Daisy grinned as Loretta pushed the door with glass panels that matched the windows closed. Daisy slotted the last few reels of cotton onto the plastic display to refill what they’d sold and hung up a couple of packets of needles, filling the row on a hook on the far wall alongside other haberdashery accessories.

‘Don’t forget the front step still needs sweeping.’ Loretta took the notepad her daughter had used to jot down what else needed replenishing and disappeared past the tea and coffee area out at the back and went upstairs to find more supplies. It was best to make a few trips rather than try to carry everything back down at once.

The space above the shop had originally been a flat and it was where Loretta and her late husband, Harry, had lived when they first married, before they started a family. But now the upstairs to the Butterbury Sewing Box was a series of storerooms as well as a dedicated venue to host sewing groups, knitting lessons and quilting workshops. The old bedroom and dining room had walled shelving units, the kitchen was used for catering for the groups and for Daisy and Loretta’s lunches. It had evolved exactly as they’d needed.

Back in the shop Loretta found Daisy peering at something on her phone. Daisy was a good worker most of the time but that was another thing about a family business, working with parents, siblings, children, it wasn’t always easy to ensure employees were doing exactly what they should be. Loretta knew that in any job your mind might wander – in an office there’d be conversations by the water cooler, perhaps a conversation about something non work-related at a desk – people rarely spent the entire day focused solely on work. Personal life crept in, she knew that, but lately Daisy’s focus had drifted. She dealt with practicalities well – stocking shelves, sorting through invoices – and was always polite to customers, but there was something bothering her and Loretta couldn’t get any information out of her youngest daughter. Loretta had a horrible feeling that whatever was troubling Daisy was deep-rooted and something Loretta has missed along the way – and as a mother that was the worst feeling of all.

‘Did you sweep the front step for me?’ Loretta asked Daisy when her daughter finally put her phone back into the rear pocket of her jeans.

‘I’ll do it now.’

On the one hand, maybe she shouldn’t assume that because she was hiding something, everyone else was too. But on the other, she wished Daisy would tell her what was on her mind.

Daisy reiterated the ‘Arctic!’ comment the minute she came back inside. ‘It’s a thankless task, you know.’ She put the dustpan and brush away beneath the counter. ‘The step will be covered in leaves and debris before lunchtime, I bet you. You’re making more work for us. I say leave it until the spring.’

Loretta laughed. ‘The village will have to burrow their way in to the shop if we do that. And remember, your grandad is stopping by today – you know I like him to see the shop at its best.’

Ivor, Loretta’s eighty-eight-year-old father, had once worked in this shop with Loretta’s mother, Rebecca, after they took on the family business from his mother, Eve, when the time was right. It had been their pride and joy and now it was still something that made Ivor happy whenever he was here. Ivor had, however, refused to come and live with Loretta in her house or contemplate having the flat at the shop converted back to accommodation especially for him. Instead he’d taken one look around Butterbury Lodge – the care home at the top of the hill the other side of Lantern Square, which sat in the heart of Butterbury, in the dip between the road that led in the direction of the lodge and the road that stretched out of the village and led on up to the local farms – and opted to grab a highly coveted place there. The lodge was, in his words, ‘Close but not too close.’

‘He does love the shop,’ smiled Daisy. ‘What time will he be here?’ She’d softened and picked up a feather duster to tackle the uppermost shelves, not something she usually did unless it was requested. It was testament to how much she and her sisters adored their grandad – he was the way to their hearts when all else failed.

‘Soon,’ was all Loretta said before she grabbed the broom to sweep the internal floors that needed doing a few times a day. ‘Do you need to rush out?’ Loretta always liked to remain flexible, let Daisy have her life, and it worked both ways. Between them they managed the workload and customers but allowed for errands and each of them to do their own thing when they needed to. And given Daisy was thirty-one, Loretta didn’t always ask too many details about what her daughter was up to.

‘Not until later so I’ll get to see Grandad.’ She dusted the lower shelves near the counter and held the door open for a group of women chattering as they bustled inside.

The trouble with a shop that had stood the test of time was that the windows, the floors and the structure were all a part of the history and not always geared up for a December day that made them feel as though they were into February and not still the better side of Christmas. And so Loretta turned the heating up in the shop. But the drafts and everything else inside the Butterbury Sewing Box were all a part of the memories, and besides, when it was cold, it gave Loretta and Daisy a chance to show off their knitted garments by wearing jumpers with big roll necks as they worked. Today Loretta wore a camel-coloured jumper in cable knit and Daisy had gone for a wine-coloured jumper that suited her rich chestnut hair, the same shade Harry’s had been when he and Loretta first met.

The women had gone slowly up and down each of the three small aisles in the shop, picking up items and discussing their needs, and after Loretta rang up the orders for the customers who were visitors to Butterbury – a pack of assorted needles for a sewing machine, a packet of premium quilt batting, and a dozen balls of mulberry wool – she wished them a merry Christmas and turned to find Daisy had made her a cup of tea.

‘I picked up some cookies from the Lantern Bakery too.’ Daisy indicated the space beneath the counter where she’d left the paper bag.

‘Now we’re talking.’ Loretta took out a cookie and bit into the soft, gooey centre. Daisy did the same and for a moment, silence descended now that the customers had left.

Loretta took the opportunity to walk around the shop and enjoy her tea, straightening the odd out-of-place packet, a ball of wool that may have been returned to the wrong section, a packet of buttons that had fallen to the floor.

The Butterbury Sewing Box, started by Loretta’s Grandma Eve, had been fuelled by a pure love of fabric, colour and Loretta’s gran’s ability to create. It was nestled at the edge of a village street with not much else around apart from a small corner shop selling newspapers, bread, milk and the odd thing you might well need before you next made it to the supermarket, and a shop that fixed lawnmowers. Out past the grounds of the old manor surrounded by a Cotswold stone wall, and before you reached the rambling green fields and countryside footpaths that bisected the land, the road where the shop sat wasn’t a thoroughfare, they weren’t subject to the ebb and flow of footfall dependent on the seasons, but a steady custom had kept them and still kept them here. Butterbury was a village that had held onto its charm with a range of independent shops, and the jewel was Lantern Square at its heart, with well-tended flowerbeds, weaving pathways, and compact lawn areas surrounded by iron railings. Lantern Square was often a drawcard with a handful of annual events and this side of Christmas meant the village tree at one end, food and mulled wine carts, and the merriment that came from living in a village large enough that you could maintain a personal life, yet small enough that people still raised a hand to wave in greeting.

The interior of the Butterbury Sewing Box still had the same dark wood shelves it had always had, give or take a few sympathetic replacements, the panelling on the walls remained, as did the glass shelves that had some of the family creations made over the years, which would forever be a part of the shop: a pearl-grey miniature yarn basket knitted by Rebecca with knitting needles poking from out between its brown leather handles; a rhubarb-and-custard coloured bobble hat Ginny made was shaped around a polystyrene mould; Loretta’s knitted doll with a smile and rosy cheeks in a patchwork dress with long legs dangling and knitted Mary Janes on her feet. Ivor’s love of knitting and crochet was here for all to see too, because for each of his granddaughters he’d knitted their favourite nursery rhyme – Fern had Humpty Dumpty sitting on a knitted wall, for Daisy he’d knitted the clock from ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’ and added the white mouse, and for Ginny, she’s always loved ‘Jack and Jill’ and so the two knitted figurines, Jack holding the pail and wearing his crown, stood side by side on the shelves with everything else. It was personal touches like this that piqued customers’ interest and made the Butterbury Sewing Box what it was today.

Loretta set her cup down on the walnut counter that had stood in the same position for decades, at the back with a view of the front door. At one end sat an old-fashioned till that, according to Loretta’s eldest daughter Fern, seriously needed an upgrade. Fern had mentioned it more than once, telling her mother it needed bringing up to date and modernising. Daisy always said it added character to the place, but of course, she would, anything to argue back her point with her eldest sister. Ginny, the middle daughter, hadn’t got involved in the argument, she did her best to avoid that or any other confrontation having been the peacemaker for so many years.

As Daisy did the honours and served a gentleman who came in to buy a pair of gloves, Loretta perused the photographs on the wall that sat at a right angle to the counter, the wall they passed every time they came and went from the back of the shop to the front. The wooden panelling held some of the most treasured memories grabbed over the years starting from the black and white print of Loretta’s grandparents, arms around one another, smiles beaming, in front of the shop when it first opened. Customers loved seeing this one, knowing how the Butterbury Sewing Box came to be. Among the memories on the wall was another of her Grandma Eve sitting on a stool holding a quilting hoop on her lap as she worked on a quilt that covered her legs, her face knitted in concentration. Every time Loretta saw this picture it reminded her of how her gran had been the one to teach her quilting for the very first time, a skill she’d worked on over the years with Ivor and Rebecca’s help as time went on, and then passed on to her own daughters. Quilting had been just a tiny part of Grandma Eve’s portfolio of talent – she made clothes, from trousers and skirts to play dresses and outfits for best. Her passion had started in war times and it was the inspiration behind the Butterbury Sewing Box. Grandma Eve had even embroidered the prettiest handkerchief for Loretta’s sixteenth birthday, intricate pink and white roses on the frilly border that curved and dipped with a ridge of deeper pink. The handkerchief was tucked away in Loretta’s drawer in her bedroom, a treasured piece that had once been in her grandma’s hands and was now in hers. She smiled, remembering how her grandma had told her that young ladies should always carry a handkerchief with them, it was simply what you did.

On the same wall as the photographs was a square pinboard and on that, fixed beneath colourful headed pins, were all Ginny’s postcards from her trips far and wide. Every time another one landed on the mat, Loretta would devour it and pin it up on display with the rest, glad her daughter was having such adventures. The card showed a colourful depiction of the tulip farms in Holland, a stunning image of the Belvedere Palace in Vienna, the vibrant Christmas markets in Basel and sparkling winter snow in Copenhagen. And no matter whether Ginny had been somewhere before, she’d always send another card.

The photograph at the end was one of Loretta’s three girls, sitting in age order, Fern on the left, then Ginny, then Daisy, all of them focusing on the special quilt spread across their laps as though they were discussing it, its intricacies and meaning. The quilt had been lost some time ago, sadly, but here it was, captured in black and white with the three girls gazing at it in awe. Harry had taken the picture without any of them realising and what Loretta treasured most was that the photograph depicted the closeness the three siblings had once shared, the sisterhood that had somehow evaporated along the way.

Loretta thought about that quilt and many others, the way the girls had worked together and bonded over them every Sunday. Back then the shop had only opened during the week and on a Saturday, Sundays had been a true day of rest, and Loretta had always spent it with her family. The next picture along on the wall was again taken by Harry and this time Loretta was with her daughters, all four of them on their hands and knees as they positioned squares, all of which had to be pieced together to make the quilt that lay across Loretta’s double bed to this day. The material had gradually dulled over time, its slight imperfections – the crooked stitching between an emerald green square and another with sunflowers, the jagged way the piece of lace had been sewn onto a countryside scene in another square – were what made it unique and special, and the sentiment as well as the closeness of that activity had never faded for Loretta. She would forever adore the quilt with its blue base and backing, squares of bright turquoise, midnight blue embroidered with silky pale crescent moons, pale blue checks taken from Fern’s old school dress, the puffy white clouds against an exquisite sky blue that Ginny had painstakingly cut out by hand before sewing on. The quilt had a couple of denim squares too, material Daisy sourced from a cut-up pair of jeans that hadn’t actually been in line for recycling. Loretta could see those denim squares in the photograph now and smiled at the memory as she always did, remembering Daisy’s expression when she was scolded for hacking to pieces the perfectly good pair of jeans Harry had bought her rather than an old pair that no longer fit. The scolding hadn’t lasted long though, it never did with Daisy. Over the years Loretta had made the odd repair to the quilt, replaced some of the batting as it lost its oomph, and it had never stopped being a reminder of her family and closer times.

Loretta wished it was as easy to get her three girls together now as it had been then. Looking at the carefree trio in the picture she wondered when they’d moved from being close-knit to having their sibling relationships hanging on by a thread, swinging in the wind, likely to break with the smallest tug.

When Fern was born forty-one years ago, Loretta had wondered whether it would be she who would take over the shop eventually, but then Ginny arrived a little over four years later, and finally Daisy six years on from that, and then Loretta had been in a cloud of parenting and hadn’t given a second thought as to who would want the shop she was so busy raising the girls and keeping the business going. She’d indulged, however, on more than one occasion, imagining all three girls wanting to take on the business, perhaps even together. But that had never happened. Fern had lost interest in sewing, quilting, or anything creative at all, so much so that Loretta found it hard to believe they shared the same DNA. Once Fern got to her teens Loretta would’ve been hard pushed to get her eldest daughter near a sewing machine even if she’d bribed her with a stack of gold coins. Ginny had been a lot more interested, but for some reason even she had stepped back along the way.

Loretta watched Daisy ring up the man’s order on the till and she smiled over at him when he put the pair of burgundy knitted gloves on straight away.

‘I’m ready to tackle a Butterbury winter now!’ he declared with a flourish before he left.

Daisy put the other gloves he’d tried on back on display and Loretta watched her. She’d been such a troubled teen, the only one of the three who really ever had, and Loretta had never known why. She’s assumed it was what it was and had simply tried to be there for her daughter. What she never would’ve predicted was Daisy’s decision to stay here with her in the Butterbury Sewing Box rather than further her studies in a totally different direction. But when she was old enough, that was what she had done. Her sisters had begun to follow their own paths, their dad was gone, and Loretta just assumed her youngest daughter was doing what made her the happiest. And with so much upset over the years, Loretta hadn’t thought it her place to question it.

With Daisy quiet once again at the other end of the shop, replenishing shelves, Loretta assumed, Loretta stocked up the baskets of mixed wool near the front door. She pushed in leftovers from bigger batches that would sell cheaper because the shades wouldn’t quite match what they had in stock now, but they’d be perfect to pull together a brightly coloured blanket, a tea cosy – unbelievably some people still used those – or a crazy knit jumper for the more adventurous. She put the last of the chocolate-brown wool onto the shelf stack near the window and straightened the pole that had rainbow-decorated fabric draped over it. The poles of material were horizontal rather than vertical, allowing customers to flip through the selection easily. But customers didn’t always leave the fabric straight and a good tidy up was always on the agenda. Loretta was third generation Rawlins – she became a Chamberlain once she married – to take the helm at the Butterbury Sewing Box and Daisy might laugh at her high standards and fastidiousness when it came to keeping the shop clean and well-presented, but in the not-too-distant future Daisy would be the one in charge, she’d be the boss for the fourth generation in a row and Loretta felt a spark of joy that her Grandma Eve’s legacy would continue. All she needed now was to make sure Daisy’s head was really still in the game because these days she worried that it was anything but.

Loretta found Daisy at the end of the shop, but she wasn’t filling the shelves as Loretta had assumed. She was engrossed in something on her phone yet again.

‘Don’t worry,’ Daisy quickly leaped in, ‘the stock is already replenished, I’m not shirking my responsibilities.’

‘I never said you were.’ But she was up to something.

‘You’re so suspicious, Mum.’ The eye roll that came with it told Loretta she’d get nothing else out of her daughter as she shoved her phone back into the pocket of her jeans. But Loretta didn’t miss a mischievous smile. Either she was up to no good or there was a man on the other end of that text message or whatever contact she’d just got. And that, Loretta supposed, would be a good thing. Daisy hadn’t seemed interested in having much of a love life lately and it made Loretta sad to think her daughter was missing her younger years when she should be out and having fun, and might even be lonely. Daisy had never said as much but she was forever going off alone camping, something she and Harry had often done together, or to photograph things – the countryside, local events, scenery at a new camping ground. And it was one thing for Loretta to be on her own when she was in her sixties, but it was quite another for Daisy to be doing the same thing at her age.

Daisy was alerted to movement outside the shop. ‘They’re early.’

Loretta spotted the minibus from Butterbury Lodge that had just pulled up. ‘Don’t panic, it’ll take them a good five minutes to disembark.’

‘I’ll run and put the heater on upstairs, get the room nice and toasty.’

Loretta greeted the seven arrivals at the door and, as predicted, it took them a while to get out of the minibus and file inside.

‘We’re here!’ It was Flo, one of the residents at the lodge, and for a woman who had once kept herself to herself, she seemed to be in charge of everyone else. She was first inside the shop and as Loretta embraced her father, announced, ‘We’ve got a name, you know. For our group.’

Loretta finished ushering everyone inside out of the cold.

‘Don’t you want to know what it is?’ Flo went on as Daisy reappeared, bypassed everyone to give her grandad an enormous hug, and then resumed professionalism by offering to take coats. She was soon weighed down with an armful, laughing from behind the material and insisting she run those upstairs before anyone handed her anything else.

‘Tell me, Flo,’ said Loretta as she gathered the remaining coats and scarves. She gave her dad another hug, noticing he was wearing the chocolate brown jumper he’d knitted himself.

Flo’s eyes danced. ‘We’re calling ourselves Oldies in Stitches.’

Loretta laughed as she handed Daisy everything in her arms and her daughter took the rest of the garments upstairs. ‘Good for you and very appropriate.’

Maggie, the staff member who’d driven the minibus, came back inside armed with a box. ‘The knitting projects they’ve been working on are all inside.’ She leaned in and whispered to Loretta, ‘Make sure their chairs are far enough apart, knitting needles tend to get waved around in all the excitement and I don’t want any injuries.’ Maggie seemed to deal with residents with a tireless efficiency and missed nothing with sharp eyes behind rounded spectacles. She’d been in charge at the lodge for years and seemed well-versed at keeping things in order but with an injection of fun that many of these elderly residents so desperately needed, especially those who didn’t have a family network visiting regularly.

‘They’ll be fine with us.’ Loretta smiled, although it was Daisy taking charge leading the way upstairs with Ivor at the rear, jostling everyone into place. He’d volunteered to help with the basic knitting skills workshop and had already got everyone off to a flying start up at the lodge apparently.

Left alone once again in the shop Loretta felt a sense of peace descend and for the next hour until the Oldies in . . .