Scholarship Quilt Raffle

Helping a community, one stitch at a time:
Cabin Fever Quilters donate 2004 quilt to SLYAA
By Andy Flynn

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Quilting was made for days like these - overcast, dreary. At 35 degrees in the morning, it was unseasonably warm for March 2. Rain was in the forecast for the first time in more than a week, a stark contrast to the past eight days of sunshine (another anomaly in the Adirondack Mountains during winter).

The ladies who call themselves the Cabin Fever Quilters were unphased by the change in weather. It's Tuesday, and they're busy with sewing projects in the great room of the historic First Presbyterian Church in Saranac Lake. "We're making pillows for cancer patients today," said Judy Kratts, a founding member of the Cabin Fever Quilters.

Every two weeks this time of year, these energetic quilters, who are mostly silver-haired and retired women, gather at the church to sew and socialize and make quilting creations for civic and not-for-profit groups. The community organizations then raffle off the projects during their fund-raising campaigns.

The church space is ample, with eight tables placed at strategic points in the room so quilters can move from table to table, sewing machine to sewing machine and hand off squares and backings, finished and unfinished fabric, to each other until a project is complete. Two tables are placed together so the progress can be measured by spreading out the quilt. Another two tables are placed together to cut the fabric, and there are four separate tables equipped with sewing machines, thread and various quilting tools. Large sewing machine bags rest empty at the foot of each table.

For the quilters, there is little time to rest. Their feet are constantly on the move, as this group is like a well-oiled machine. They seem to know what everyone is thinking, and they know what needs to be done next. They are of one mind, even if they are working on three projects at the same time.

The Cabin Fever Quilters were formed in the mid-1980s, and after their first show, someone suggested that the group donate a quilt to a community organization for a fund-raising raffle. "Then they wanted everything we had, whether it was for sale or not," said Carolyn Moody, a founding member of the Cabin Fever Quilters. The idea stuck, and now the Cabin Fever Quilters hold a show once every two years and donate most of their projects to charities and not-for-profit groups in Saranac Lake.

Since 1990, members of the Cabin Fever Quilters have completed more than 20 quilting projects for community organizations, including: Pendragon Theatre, 1990; the Humane Society, 1993; North Country Life Flight, 1994; the Getaway Youth Center, 1995; Johns Hopkins Hospital (dolls), 1996; Sisters of Mercy (Uihlein Centennial Quilt squares), 1996; High Peaks Hospice (in memory of Bruce and Gail Bullock), 1997 with the Pine Tree Quilters; Midwest flood victims (quilts), 1998; ComLinks (crib quilts), 1990s; Habitat for Humanity, 1998 (quilt) and 2001 (Christmas stockings); North Country Council on Alcoholism, 1999; Hannah House, 2001; Saranac Lake River Walk, 2002; Star of Hope (quilt for teacher and fellow quilter who had cancer), 2002; ComLinks Safe House (quilt squares), 2003; Adirondack Carousel (quilt squares), 2003; and the Saranac Lake Free Library (children's library wall hanging), 2003.

The Cabin Fever Quilters made the Saranac Lake Village Centennial Quilt in 1992, and the group has worked on community service projects with the Champlain Valley Quilters. They recently finished making hats for hospice patients. "The reason we can do more projects is because there are a lot more retired people with more spare time," Moody said. "We have a few younger bodies, and Valerie is one of them," Kratts added. "The rest of us, we can work all day, like today, on a project or we take it home and assign somebody to do three blocks or something like that." Members of the Cabin Fever Quilters are: Kratts, Moody, Nancy DePuy, Valerie McGuoirk, Uta Wister (president), Carol Grebe, Marilyn Gillespie, Polly Chapin, Jan Kibben, Carole Weisinger and Carolie North.

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The methods used in the construction of the SLYAA quilt fit well with the mission statement of the group: to support and nurture the arts among Saranac Lake Central School District youth. Most of the blocks for the quilt were designed by Saranac Lake High School students in John "Doc" Ward's Design and Illustration class in the spring 2003 semester. The rest were designed by members of the Cabin Fever Quilters. Students in Ward's class included: Shannon Emmons, Brandon Phelps, Cory Surprenant, Jessica Hayward, Aja Roddy, Ricky Dykeman, Adam Trim, Nick Brindisi, Adrienne Donaldson, Melinda McAleese, Kevin Tyler, Emmon Peer, Sara Shanty, Brian Wittmer, Ryan Walter, Natalie LeMire, Cory McGill and Trev Sussey.

Members of the Cabin Fever Quilters took time out of their schedule on March 2 to talk about how they made the SLYAA quilt. Spreading the quilt onto two tables in the First Presbyterian Church, they placed the students' designs, made of construction paper, on top of the corresponding quilt squares and sat around the multi-colored, wool creation. Kratts explained that she had taken a wool-quilting class at "Quilt Camp" in Paul Smiths that focused on the button-hole stitch, "which you find along all the edges of the appliqué on here," she said, pointing to squares on the SLYAA quilt. The group was fascinated by the button-hole stitch and decided to make their 2004 community service quilt using that technique. The quilt material is unique and was made with wool and wool-blended fabric. The group collected wool from various second-hand stores, the Salvation Army and goodwill donations. Wister donated the blue border fabric she bought at a special sale. "It's recycling," Kratts said. "That's what quilting used to be about, and this is kind of going back to the roots of quilting with recycling fabrics."

The wool was all washed and pre-shrunk so the quilt can be machine washed and dried. Careful thought was also put into the use of the quilt once it is raffled off and moved to a permanent home, possibly on a bed. "We thought people who didn't want wool next to their skin would prefer something softer, so we made a flannel back and bound it with cotton," Kratts said. Most of the Cabin Fever Quilters made several squares for the SLYAA quilt, and they matched fabric, as closely as they could, to the designs from the SLHS students."I think the one that looks the closest is the one Carol did of the mountains," DePuy said. "She more or less looked at it, transferred it to fabric, cut it out, button-hole stitched it on and made the square."

The "Cabin Fever" quilt, as it is named, represents life in the Adirondack Mountains, featuring a mosquito, a bear, a raccoon, several fish, a canoe, a kayak, a mountain range, a wolf howling into the moon. The words "Adirondacks" and "Cabin Fever" were added, and Kratts made the red SLYAA square with the group's logo. Asked if there was one design that was particularly challenging, Moody said, "Most of them." "Everybody had some challenges when we got those tiny pieces," Kratts said. "But at least this doesn't fray like regular fabric, and that's the nice part of it."

In the colder months, the quilters meet at the church. In the summer, they meet at each others' homes in the evening to work on projects. "We quilted this in June (2003) on the hottest day," Wister said of the SLYAA quilt. For now, the Cabin Fever Quilters continue to make quilts for community service groups in the Saranac Lake area. In their spare time, they have to finish their own projects for the 9th Cabin Fever Quilters Show, which will be held on Aug. 12-14 at the First Presbyterian Church in Saranac Lake.

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