Bayberry Quilters

To my delight, a long, long time friend who I think I've seen once or twice in thirty years, called this week to invite me to go to a meeting of the Bayberry Quilters of Cape Cod. I had tried to contact them last fall but, like many Cape Cod organizations, they did not respond to the email. And I got busy. I also knew Marylou lives part of the year here but had not called her as I was trying to get my bearings and deal with the culture shock of life on Cape Cod after so many years in NYC. Happily, a mutual friend gave her my phone number and, happily, we went to the meeting yesterday. Renewing an acquaintance was wonderful, and seeing a well run organization was also wonderful.

Plus the speaker of the day was Froncie Quinn a very bouncy and practiced speaker who had a very well planned presentation. Froncie mainly calls herself a pattern writer but she is very much a researcher and historian. She has a book called Enduring Grace, Quilts From the Shelburne Museum. Her talk was about many of these quilts. She had made sample reproductions which were passed around as well as having many laminated printed pictures of details of the actual quilts. She had fascinating information about their making and makers -- some very, very well made, beautiful old quilts were made by very young women, in one case by a girl of 8 and it was her 4th quilt! Although historical quilts interest me less than contemporary and art quilts, Froncie was a very good speaker who made the subject very interesting and her reproductions were shown close up so we could actually marvel at what past quilters were able to do. I'm very sorry I didn't take my camera. I would have liked to share a few of the quilts here. She has written patterns for making many historic quilts with directions both for the old fashioned construction method and for more modern construction.