Parallel Play

Last weekend, six of us went into the woods to quilt, all weekend, in a cabin, with no cell phone service.  It was intense sewing and intense fun.

Using Civil War reproduction fabrics, we embarked upon the making of the first blocks from Eleanor Burns' Underground Railroad Sampler.  We pieced the Underground Railroad, Monkey Wrench, Wagon Wheel, and Carpenter's Wheel blocks (and some even pieced Bear Claw as well).  Our goal is to stitch our way through the entire book, replicating quilt blocks that were possibly used as code guiding runaway slaves to freedom.  Quilting lore suggests that these quilts hanging on a clothesline or "airing out" draped over a fence signaled specific directions or steps in the Underground Railroad journey.  It is a intriguing story of feminine ingenuity and compunction.

Sharing a common purpose and passion, we set up machines and stitched and cut...

and ate and laughed and sewed some more.  Several of us (not all of us) even left the cabin to wander the mountain roads and paths and visit another group of quilters retreating up the road at the same camp.  I have never been to hunting camp but I imagine the shared purpose, fellowship, and time to be away in the natural world is very similar to quilting camp.  Being away this way offers time and space to grow specific expertise while at the same time develop the friendship of women.  Coming home and returning to the routine of the week is refreshed, renewed through the lens of shared experience.