The collector called the design primitive. (primitive: rudimentary, basic, crude) He meant that the shapes were simple; the seamstress heard a disdainful judgment of the maker's sensibility. (disdainful: scornful, contemptuous, haughty; sensibility: sensitivity, awareness, responsiveness) To label a carefully planned design unsophisticated seemed to her a kind of pretension on the part of the label's author. (unsophisticated: simple, uncomplicated, basic; pretension: affectation, pretentiousness, posturing)
She pointed to a double row stitched across the diagonal. Its relevance would elude someone looking only at the top. (relevance: pertinence, applicability, bearing; elude: escape, baffle, puzzle) Turning the quilt over revealed a patch. The collector saw a parallel between the seamstress and the old maker: both had worked a repair into a design. (parallel: analogy, similarity, correspondence) The unexpected design had grown from the practical repair. No knowledge of esoteric symbols was required. (esoteric: arcane, recondite, abstruse)
The collector crossed out his first label. His new one named the maker and invited visitors to look at both sides. The seamstress lent him a mirror. She had found a way to improve the label by shortening it.