There is a place that only exists in my memories now. In my family it was just called “camp”, a lake in the Adirondacks that was home to a boys camp from the late 1800’s until it was bought by General Electric in the early 1900’s as a private getaway location for the families of the corporate elite. Employees who were welcomed to be a part of the purchasing lots were able to walk around the property to survey the locations. My great-grandfather was an engineer with GE who designed train engines, as he intrepidly walked the undeveloped woods to see the plots there was one that was always his top choice and by luck he was able to secure it. Those who were getting plots were allowed to choose them in a raffle type fashion. My great-grandfather got first pick and this plot was so chosen not just because it was lake front but because it had the biggest tree on the lake. There is something about that detail that feels like a thread pulling through time and the family tree. No matter what our professions are, or were, we have all been tied to nature. 

 

Camp was a small single level summer season structure at first with a fireplace for those cold Northeast nights or rainy gloomy slumps of summer. Expanded quickly to include a screened in porch, and a small attic/loft for kids to bunk. My grand-parents improved the building to be three seasons with an indoor bathroom and shower, a larger kitchen, additional bedroom, and a bunkhouse up the hill for extra guests. Camp was always camp, it was comfortable but a little scruffy, refined but rustic. The thing modern camps and ranches try to achieve but can never quite get there. It is a building that is a part of the land not overwhelming it. 

​

The road into camp winds past the community house purposefully at the entrance and also at the center in a way. Camps line a looped road and in the summer of my youth it was still a hub for the grandparents to take in and welcome all the family that filtered in and out as time allowed them to. Among the quiet of nature there was laughing and stories and warm lights all around. No one was turned away from a doorstep if they were in need of a chat, a bandaid, or a sweet. The carport is at the top of the plot, uphill from camp and the path down is a walk under towering white pines that provide the soft carpet made of generations of their needles. Either side of the path is native ferns cultivated by family and the stomping ground for many chipmunks stealing seed from the feeders to be hidden in the woodpile outside the door. Their tussles are only visible by the shaking fronds and vibrant angry chirps. The kitchen faces up the hill and is made completely of windows where a friendly face would be puttering waiting for our arrival. I rarely made it to the front door of camp with my shoes on, every step away from the carport was a step away from proper and polite, and into my feral natural state. Passing by the train engine bell that was used to call me in from whatever corner of the lake I was exploring we would be met and with a hug, a pat, and maybe a treat I would carry on into the wilds to be a wild thing for any remaining time I had there. The longer the better.

​

Camp’s modern, and properly lockable, entrance door brought you into a porch room that served to hold coats, the wood box, pantry whose dry goods were protected by ancient cracker tins, and part of the toolshed. It was a mixture of smells from mothballs, to wood, to tool lubricant that is so specific it would bring me back there like a portal. The door into camp proper was an original, a hand made relic of a time long ago. It was a show piece for the entrance of a place created with pride. Hand beveled wood surrounding the glass panes that were now warped with that slow ooze over time glass is subject to. A door knob originally black but now polished base metal from generations of hands turning it to step into the sanctuary on the other side. It is here that I find the family art that I hold so dear and helped shape how I view art and craft, and skill and inspiration. Wherever you find yourself in the modest structure you are surrounded by the spoils of projects. Generations of women who braided wool scraps into the carpet of rugs to protect bare feet from the cold floor, crochet blankets across wood armchairs lathed, stained, polished and constructed by two men across two generations. Photographs prized for their memories, not their quality framed on the wall. One pen and ink drawing shows a rendering of my grandmother at night in the bed on the screened porch bed. She is peeking over the covers pulled up to her chin at her long-haired tabby cat at the base of the bed napkin around its neck, sparkling utensils in hand, a dish plated with garnishments-and a dead mouse. A story she loved to tell and a memory lovingly imagined and presented to her by a friend at camp for her birthday during one of the many dinners held at the community house for everyone to join in. There is a photo in the corner of the frame of her receiving the gift, a little embarrassed by being in the spotlight, her bun slightly askew and stray hairs framing her face, she is wearing one of the many aprons she had sewn herself. 

​

Further in her bedroom indoors, she only begrudgingly used if the season was too cold or wet for the porch bed, there is a closet full of tops sewn and knitted by her hands that rarely knew idleness. Planting a garden, starting seeds, every crossword she could get her hands on, needlecraft of every variety, my grandmother Elva was constantly creating the world around her. The windows of the bedroom open to the shady side of camp and the scent that would come in was organic and warm. The bed was itself a relic, lathe turned and clear up to my waist, the quilt covering is a scrap antique biscuit type quilt. This is one of the possessions I have acquired from camp. The quilt is now with me in my own house protected in a cedar trunk, the smell of camp still lingering on the fabric. It was only recently while homesick that I took it out and examined the squares that make up a quilt I have so often since small childhood wrapped myself in. 

​

A quilt is a bed covering that is made of three layers, a front and back, and an insulating middle layer. The oldest surviving quilt is from 14th century Italy, currently housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum of London. Piece quilting as we know it today is almost entirely an American tradition. Settlers to North America needed these bed coverings as an act of warmth and survival. After the Revolutionary War and as the economy grew here and fabrics started to become more readily available quilting started to become a creative endeavor. It comes as a shock to no one that life was still a struggle in that era. There were a lot of tasks and women were not afforded the same opportunities for leisure as men. As quilting became an act of creativity it also became an act of charity. To this day quilting guilds donate more quilts than they keep or create for show. Sewing bees and quilting guilds will make baby quilts for newborns, police will have handmade quilts in the car for children being pulled from situations, a group will make quilts for the homeless or the hospice, and there are always handmade quilts on hand for those patients whose bodies cannot sustain life anymore but they have given the gift of organ donation to act as a remembrance for the family of the selfless gift given forward. 

​

Since this was a charitable cause not a commercial or enterprising one the men were not interested. It was an opportunity for women to sit, and do something of pleasure and pursuit not necessity and requirement. After the top was finished the three pieces still needed to be quilted together. This can be a simple task of tying points in a grid across the covering or it can be intricate scrolls and designs sewn in. This was where the sewing circle would come in, with a piece on a frame women would sit around it stitching and talking. It was as much about the act of sewing as it was about learning news, and spreading information-even political information. The quilts themselves could act as a dog whistle for political beliefs. Many quilting squares were designed during times of protest, unrest, Presidential elections, and political movements. They can act as a subtle voice and a carrier of memories. That is what I have, a quilt made by my grandmother Elva that has been gathering memories for four generations.  

​​​​​

We do not know exactly when she made the quilt, likely it was in her younger years and probably constructed while spending time at camp. The best anyone can guess is somewhere around World War II or after. It is roughly twin sized of scrap wool squares that came from scrap wool pulled from a generational scrap pile. It is a quilt of repeating squares of the same size but with no pattern. Each square is a finished size of 2.75” but there is a little extra puff in the middle created by first not sewing the fabric perfectly flat but also by adding a little fold on each side as it was sewn to the next. It is a structure sitting somewhere between geometric and organic. There is uniformity in the construction of the squares and the design of the squares. It is where the structure and constraint is seen, but there is variety in both color and texture of the wool used and lack of strict color pattern that give it the organic nature. It is a quilt at home in the forest.

 

The main colors of wool used are warm and earthy, colors drawn from nature with no distinct color palette or color scheme but the closest option would be analogous. There are pops of color creating focal points and interest to draw your eye around the squares. There is no one texture to this quilt, the backing is a soft worn calico and the top is nearly a riot of different tactile contrasts for fingers to explore. Stretchy airy knit, dense tweed, smooth twill, basket weave patterns, and occasional bright stripes. The backing is a plaid calico fabric of muted complimentary plaid pattern. A base color of a warm gray with stripes of soft navy, rose, and olive long worn and even more muted with age. It is several large pieces of this plaid sewn together to get it to attain the size needed to cover the entire piece and act as the binding. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

​​​​​​​

The Binding process I would hazard was the last straw and final battle. I say this because one finished edge has a thick binding allowance and the others are a bit starved for extra fabric. I believe during this final process that mistakes and choices were made and looking at the seam that there was also a struggle. Whether it was a struggle to just get it done followed by a struggle to get the sewing machine to handle the fabric only to realize a mistake had been made and the idea of ripping the seam out to start over was too much I will never know. But there is a thicker binding on one side and slim, wandering seam on the rest. I feel that in my DNA, sometimes it is just time to be finished. 

​

Some years later there was a repair made to the corner. When I was learning about the art and history of American quilting one of the guests had this to say about repairing old quilts:

​

“I used to be very much like a purist about this. Come on, you're not just going to use any old thread. You've got to use the kind of three-ply thread that she would have used, you know, and you got to, and the fabrics will get yourself some 19th century fabrics and all of that stuff. But then I started realizing at some point, if I find a quilt that was quilted in 1810, right? And then in 1880, somebody repaired it with some 1880 fabric that doesn't fit with the 1810 quilt at all, then I think that's great. It's like, oh, it tells a story, you know. Somebody made it, and then 70 years later, somebody else repaired it, and oh, isn't that? And I would think that's great. So to be consistent, I have to say it's perfectly fine to repair an old quilt. But do it. Repair it yourself.”

​

I struggle with the idea of repairing the worn bits but listening to the guest who himself is not just a historian but an incredible artist felt like getting permission to do it. The repair becomes part of the story and the piece.

 

My grandmother had several sewing machines, her last is a Kenmore my mother still has. Before that was a machine that also still has a place in the family home named Mighty Mouse. A relic of a Singer that makes terrifying noises and only really has one speed which is almost always faster than you want to be going. On a trip to home for the holidays I realized my mom would really love a custom towel set. She is not a fluffy fuzzy towel gal and was using vintage baby blankets for their old soft flannel. Off to the fabric store I went with my dad (R.I.P. Joann’s) to pick up flannel and linen to create something soft, durable, and would not take 3 hours to dry in the machine. It was hardly a surprise to my mother that she got something sewn since the sound of Mighty Mouse was hard to hide as were my frequent yelps of anxiety and frustration. There are many seams I created with Mighty Mouse that trip that I see present in this quilt, I like to think that was a shared experience through time. 

​

This quilt is part of the family legacy and it is there that it holds the most value. There are collectors that appreciate it for the age and type but it is the wonky seams that make it human and Elva’s. She may have looked back and regretted not taking those seams out but it is what gives it character and a connection to her now that she is gone.

​

While four generations ago it may have been the men who were able to purchase the properties and make the family decisions as dictated by the social norms and edicts of the period there has been little evidence to the contrary that my family is a long line of  matriarchs. The women were in the front and always thinking of those who came after her. The walls of camp were once lined with needleworks from generations of once nimble hands and those of the younger who picked up the mantle as they aged. The thread that tugs through the old branches of the family tree and is attached to all of us who watched our elders perform art and magic with a needle and thread and picked one up too. Women whose sewing stashes were passed down through generations and finished works from beautiful to whimsical created for a granddaughter who just wanted to see her cat memorialized for eternity. 

​

Where I sit right now I can see the stash of my grandmother’s wool fabric and her tins of buttons, spools of thread, and notions of every kind I inherited early on and covet with my canoe paddle and bison tooth. At my parents house is the sewing table built by my grandfather that will eventually be driven away from the east coast to its home with me, the third generation of caretaker for it. Whose drawers carry a smell from my youth poking around in my grandmother’s cabinet for buried treasure of lost chocolates. Those needlework pieces from camp were carefully removed from camp’s walls and are now hanging in my grandmother’s daughter’s homes after camp was sold to another member of the family. With the purchase ended three generations of stewardship of the family camp and its open door policy. It is no longer a family home and gathering place but a house owned and closed off. No more little feet padding down the stone path avoiding the morning slugs. Summers a camp I would sit curled up in my blanket on the dock early mornings watching my grandmother dip into the foggy still waters. At night I would watch the sun go down listening to the ducks or loons while I saved dragon flies from the spider webs. The clinking of dishware and laughter at surrounding camps letting me know soon I’d be called in. I would pack up the fishing gear from my canoe and head inside where my grandpa would want to hear all about my adventures while we buttered our ears of corn. During the day I would fall asleep on the hammock listening to the wind in the ferns and the creaking of the pines, a nuthatch talking as it went up and down the trees. When I woke up it was this quilt I would find magically appeared over me and one that I now drape over my son, the fourth generation of quilt keeper.