Lynne Green, Sheila Haddad and Mary Jane Yuki all work in Engineering II, a modern, sleek building where scientists carry out hi-tech, intricate research in electrical engineering and computer science.
But within the first floor Dean's Office, where the women work, there are hints of a decidedly timeless and low-tech yet intricate enterprise - quilting. The staffers are leaders of a cadre of UC Davis employees who are fanatics for the fabric art and the creativity and camaraderie it produces.
Yuki, a student affairs officer, has hung a blue and yellow floral wall quilt that she patiently stitched by hand on her office wall. Yuki calls it her Tuscany Quilt, for the memories its colors evoke of the Italian region's pottery.
Mounted in a whimsical Tinker-Toy frame on her office filing cabinet, Haddad, a senior artist, has a miniature quilt designed in log-cabin and flying-geese patterns.
Green, the office's facilities director, tends to make larger quilts, which she keeps at home. But when she brought in some pieces to show a visitor recently, her work - including a kaleidoscope pattern created with the help of a mirror - drew praise from passers-by.
"I think (other) office mates have mixed feelings about quilting, but on the whole, I think they are impressed," Yuki said. "I guess it sounds sort of crazy when you tell them that you buy yards and yards of fabric, cut it up into tiny pieces, then sew them back up."
There is easy appeal in quilting, the onetime utilitarian craft that has become a decorative art and passion for the engineering staffers and others across campus.
"I defy a quilter not to go into a store and pick up some new fabric, a ruler or a magazine," said Green, who began quilting seriously in the early 1990s as a way to rebound from a divorce.
Photographer Debbie Aldridge and associate director Jeanne Reese of Mediaworks regularly attend Saturday morning quilt workshops with the engineering trio at Cloth Carousel and Quiltworks in Winters. And there are others in the Engineering dean's office with a quilting interest, such as dean's assistant Terry Quiring, graduate coordinator Kim Reinking and student affairs officer Kim Berg.
"It's such a support system," Haddad said. "One of us will bring in a project - either completed or in-progress - and get immediate feedback from the others."
She and Green traveled last summer to a week of quilting classes and demonstrations in Sisters, Ore. They have thoughts about attending a quilting cruise, which features all the pleasures of a tropical getaway plus on-board sewing machines.
Aldridge, whose quilts have won ribbons at the California State Fair, has discovered the universal appeal of quilting.
When Aldridge and her family visited Paris last year they went to a quilting shop. Aldridge has also read about the popularity of quilting in Australia and Japan.
Last month, Haddad attended a lecture by Vice Provost and African and African-American studies professor Patricia Turner on the roles African-American husbands take in their wives' quilting activities. Turner told the crowd that the women's husbands didn't understand why they need to keep buying more fabric - in different colors, textures and patterns - when they seemed to have enough on hand.
"This brought gales of laughter from the audience," Haddad said. "Certainly the need to create seems to be present in most every culture." •