quiltersmuse.com Blog

No doubt, every person who has ever lived has wondered how he or she got here, in a spiritual sense; what their goals in life should be; and at the end of life, we wonder why it went so fast and what life truly meant. One considers whether “right” choices were made, knowing full well that there are no really “right” or “wrong” choices, except perhaps in a moral sense. There are only “alternate” choices.

We lock our doors, and set home alarm systems, and try to protect ourselves from things that go bump in the night. What we overlook is that there usually is no real danger from exterior sources. Ultimately, our own bodies are the enemy. We are prone to self-destruct.

Between the cradle and the grave, we go about our business as if there will be a tomorrow. Pick up any newspaper, in any city, on any given day, and the obituaries will reveal the names of those who thought there would be a tomorrow in their future. Yet, the person choked on a piece of steak, or got run over by a truck backing up, or died of hypothermia while hiking in the mountains, or a million other ways that people can and do write their final chapter.

Being a creative person means that someone will leave behind more extant physical objects than perhaps others. For example, my quilts reside with friends around the country and around the world. My quilt history and textile articles, poetry, and songs have been distributed to millions of people via our well-trafficked website, newspapers, and print publications. Quilt directions I have written have resulted in the making of more quilts than I can imagine. My “hand-outs” for classes I’ve presented will outlast me. People tend to hang onto such ephemera. My words and my works are my personal legacy, and so are my direct descendants, one son and two grandchildren.

When life is uncertain, as it is right now for me, it is good to take account of the things I’ve done right in life. No one is perfect. My biggest mistake was in thinking that life would continue for a lot longer, pain-free, and problem-free.

For now, all I can do is to appreciate what “is:” the flowers in the garden, the toad at the back door, the Cardinal in my backyard, the satisfying little quilt project I designed and am working on, the nutritious food that Jim prepares, and having such a loving husband and good friends. Life is composed of the “little things,” and in the end, the small kindnesses and the joie d’ vivre are really ALL that matters.

I celebrate the memories of all of the opportunities I’ve been given from my youth, going forward. In the end, I would not trade my experiences, both good or bad, for those of any other living soul, or, for that matter, for all the tea in China.

Take a lesson, enjoy today. The rainy days will come soon enough.

Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications

Old Friends
Words & music by Paul Simon

Old friends,
Old friends
Sat on their park bench
Like bookends.

Dyer’s Chamomile in our garden

When I was a teenager, I enjoyed the music of “Simon and Garfunkel,” including the lyrics above that are only part of a song. Old friends are like “bookends.” They hold each other up and in high regard. They remember “when.” They forgive the extra pounds, the gray hair, and other physical changes that TIME wreaks on our bodies.

For the past 43 or 44 years, I have wondered whatever happened to a good friend from Junior High School. We grew up in the same (small) town, and went to different high schools. Eventually, we lost track of each other. I went away to the university, and then lived in Spain, California and Arizona. After a time, I returned to my home state of New Hampshire. Dorothy of “The Wizard of Oz” was right, “There is no place like home.”

Just about a week ago, I was looking through the University of New Hampshire Magazine and found his name there, in a scientific article. I sent him a note, we became Facebook friends, and today, I had the distinct pleasure of visiting with him in his home.

There is something comforting about knowing people who remember your family and other people from the past … a past that seems a lifetime ago because it is. We had a lot of catching up to do.

I hope we will do some more visiting. In seeing him again, I realized the qualities that attracted me to him: his keen and inquiring mind, his love of nature, and the aura of peace that seems to surround him. Anyone would be lucky to be his friend.

We do have something in common now that we did not have when we were twelve or fourteen. We both have life-threatening conditions.

When that is the case, every new day dawning is a blessing. Like me, he is strong of spirit and still engaged in learning! To see him again just felt like the right thing to do. I feel happy tonight and at peace. I feel that I’ve come full circle, and that this meeting with David was orchestrated by a Higher Being. How else could it be explained?

Friends make us more than we are, and lift us up when the World lets us down. The point of understanding is that, given a chance, the World will always let us down.

After driving through the pouring rain, I came home to another “friend” who had baked a cake for us while I was gone. People have various ways of showing love, and baking and cooking are certainly two ways. That same guy made homemade Squash Soup and Cranberry Biscuits for lunch, and did all the dishes!.

In addition, a beautiful greeting card was waiting in today’s mail from another friend. How did I ever get so lucky to have so many friends? I am blessed with friends. May the “Light of the World” shine on them. The love one gives is commensurate to the love one reaps.

Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications

In quilt history circles, we hear the same names mentioned, again and again, a rehash of the same facts about the same people, and usually their contributions, as a party of one. Ellen Emeline Hardy Webster is one 1930s quilt historian from New Hampshire whose life and works I dedicated many hours, days, weeks and months, to not only studying, but compiling a list of her life’s contributions within a 355 page/ 340 photo document that we have produced as a pdf e-book on CD. We chose that format of presentation because, printed out, double-sided, the book is 3″ thick, making it heavy and unwieldy.

Ellen did not work alone. She had collaborators and friends who shared their antique quilts, (quilts that were antique in the 1930s, that is), with her, so that she could study them and document them. Two of those close friends were Ellen A. Webster (no relation) and her sister, Emily Webster Browne. Before I came along, no one had discovered those names or knew who these ladies were. Their importance cannot be underestimated, nor the fact that Ellen Emeline Hardy Webster traveled throughout the New England states, serving as quilt lecturer and quilt judge. Her dedication to the subject of quilts was as passionate as her interest in birds, children, social causes, music, her family, the Bible, and studies in Math and Science.

The CD was exciting to research, as I kept discovering new facts about New Hampshire, most especially Hebron, Franklin, and Concord, and the societal environment in which Ellen lived in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It was a joy to locate and read all of Ellen Webster’s published findings.

Ellen was important in her own day, especially when she was young and beautiful. After her death in 1950, she went into partial obscurity and much of what was written about her recently, is inaccurate. Why, some folks can’t even get her name right. That’s the thanks she has received.

Ellen E. Hardy – Please give this poor girl her name back – it was NEVER “Emily”

When her adopted daughter died, the estate administrators found Ellen Webster’s quilt charts, and not knowing what to do with them, they gave all 162 charts, with more than 200 “saved designs,” to the New Hampshire Historical Society where they languished on a shelf for years.

With no quilt historian on-hand, they were mis-described, and the penciled notations on them were not transcribed in their entirety, or interpreted, until I came along. I could easily make sense of the information as I am a quilt historian, and I understand construction techniques, color combinations, etc. as I am also a nationally-certified master craftsman in quilting.

Moreover, in presenting Mrs. Webster to the general public, I wanted to place her work within a greater framework of the other quilt historians of her time, particularly those she had mentioned on the charts. My husband, Jim, was asked by the NH Historical Society’s Registrar to photograph all of the charts. He did so, and edited the photos, and we presented those images to the Society for their use in cataloguing objects. A colorful article was published in The Quilter magazine that showed 12 of the chart designs and discussed their significance, as well as findings about Mrs. Webster.

There is a lot of satisfaction in doing fine work and responsible research. We left no stone unturned and the result is a CD that is beautiful tribute to the life and work of a very special lady who remains special, even in death.

At the same time, Mrs. Webster continues to be overlooked, known only by a few who have purchased our CD. Lies have continued to be perpetuated by evil people (for lack of a better term) who only seek only their own self-aggrandizement, and/or want to cover up the sloppy scholarship of a peer.

The book is a beautiful read. It is a celebration of all that was Ellen. She was an outstanding individual and it is too bad that, in the end, in spite of all of my good intentions and strenuous efforts, Ellen stands the chance of slipping into obscurity once again due to the pigheadedness of certain institutions who insist on hanging onto the false name of “Emily” instead of her correct name, Ellen Emeline Hardy Webster. They smear her name on the Internet and cannot be dissuaded from their course of action, and so doing, in spite of many pleas, they lead others into darkness. Ellen was her first name and was the name she was known by in her lifetime, as well as in her writings and in many official documents. “Elly” was her only nickname, given by teasing school boys and short-lived.

Yet, pride seems to be at the bottom of a lack of correction to false information that is currently being promulgated by institutions, especially the University of Nebraska’s International Quilt Study Center. It is extremely disappointing that true scholarship is not honored in this country – it’s who you know, or with whom you are buddies, that counts.

It would have been nice to think that I made a difference. I did, I suppose. I got the hair to stand up on the back of the necks of a number of administrators who were a little too full of themselves; not my intent at all, in insisting on the truth. The word “Truth” makes some folks’ ears flop over. They just don’t want to hear it.

I am here to tell you that I KNOW the truth about this matter, and in my opinion, it is rather silly … all this academic posturing, and changing someone’s published “abstract” many times, for a talk that was GIVEN two years ago that presented some faulty information.

One can’t change the facts, and as much as one might like to try, it’s impossible to alter the course of the wind. Therefore, adjust your sails.

Patricia Cummings, a responsible researcher and independent scholar
Quilter’s Muse Publications

Ever see an earwig? According to folk stories, these ugly and frightening insects, with their hooked tails, burrow into a person’s brain via the ear canal and lay their eggs. It is the kind of story that could make for a good thriller, don’t you think? We could call the movie, “March of the Earwigs,” something akin to “The Birds” of Alfred Hitchcock.

Why such bizarre thoughts on such a lovely day? Well, I began my day with trying to drown an earwig that was in the bathtub. Down the drain he went, never to return (we hope). However, earwigs love damp condition, so chances are he will just find a mate, down the drain, and an army of them will return.

From my Entymology class at UNH, I do remember that earwigs are “chewing insects.” They mainly eat vegetation, the more decayed the better, as I recall. One less well known fact is that they will chew on clothing and textiles, as will other insects like silverfish. Cockroaches have been known to inhabit the battings of old quilts. At one documentation day, an unsuspecting documenter was beset by lot of the little cucarachas. It is always good to periodically check and clean those dark closets where you may be storing quilts. It is always a good idea NOT to store quilts in the attic or basement.

The Wikipedia file on earwigs, is interesting. I recall the professor saying that insects sometimes have exoskeletons, that is, they wear their armor (the equivalent of bones) on the outside. That is why “bugs” like hornets are so difficult to kill.

Of all the beings in the natural world, I do believe that I despise earwigs the most. Even spiders are a step up, in my estimation. Read the wiki on them and you will find out more than you ever knew you wanted to know.

Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications

Jeff Warner, a seasoned musician, entertained a very interested audience at the Hampstead Public Library in New Hampshire, on July 27, 2009. He is proficient on guitar, banjo, mountain dulcimer, and concertina and credits his parents with encouraging his interest in music, from an early age, due to their own love of folk music. This particular program, titled, “Music in Our Pockets,” is a look at the way people entertained themselves in the nineteenth century (1800s) by voice, instrumental music, and additional instruments like spoons, bones (of cows), and the “Jew’s harp” (that has nothing to do with Jewish people, by the way). Part of his focus was music from Appalachia; and North Carolina, where he grew up.

Jeff Warner on July 27, 2009 at Hampstead Public Library (NH)

For more than an hour, Warner discussed and played folk music and revealed the nature of the folklore tradition, saying that two components, “continuity and variation,” are integral to the understanding of folk music. Lyrics change over time. So, instead of being static, or fixed, the music is like a flowing river that can change course at any time (my words, not his). Jeff provides programs for school children, and is well-versed in providing appealing lyrics that children enjoy. Sometimes, he lets kids make up their own lyrics.

We loved his wooden toy in the shape of a human figure that he knew how to make dance.

Jeff Warner with his dancing toy

I also liked his answer to a story told by someone in the audience who stated, in conclusion, that her garnet ring had been stolen and all she has is the memory of it. Without missing a beat, Warner retorted something to this effect: “Isn’t that the most important thing that any of us has … our memories?” That is so true. We cannot keep material goods forever, or even loved ones, but we can hold people and things close, in memory.

One could readily see how much this musician connects with his art and enjoys it. He travels throughout the country, performing and sharing his musical talent and scholarship. We were very lucky to hear this presentation that was sponsored by the New Hampshire Humanities Council. We can always count on that organization to provide quality programs. Many thanks to Jeff Warner for a very fun evening of American music. You can find out more about Jeff on his website where he has music CDs available for sale.

Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications