This tribute to Roger and Kit's cabin on Squam Lake, New Hampshire, was started in a workshop with Mary Lou Weidman. I had intended to fill it with appliqued objects, figures and words. During the workshop I only got as far as creating the house and trees. It went into a drawer of WIPs and stayed there for 5 years. When I finally pulled it out, it turned out I liked just as it was and didn’t feel like I could give any applique the time it would need to be right. I finished the top within a day,and then took two days to quilt it. I am thrilled with it now and find it just as meaningful as it might have been with the applique. This quilt measures 65" x 50".
For close to twenty years, each summer when we'd go visit relatives in Massachusetts, we'd also make a trip to Squam Lake in New Hampshire to stay with our friends Roger and Kit. It was a truly magical place, a one hundred year old cabin that Kit's father built. The lot right on the lake also included a very cool cabin with bunks. Mark and I went there before kids and kept on going after the kids were born. We always had the most marvelous hospitality from our friends. We remember boat rides to the icecream shop, water skiing, trips to Church Island to pick blueberries, quiet canoe rides, swimming to the floating dock and wild jumps, floating peacefully under the pines on the edge of the lake, the wide porch with 2 hammocks (just right for 2 kids), the most perfect rocking chairs, meals on the porch, watching the storms roll in across the lake, the sound of loons at night, and games at the big table on rainy days. Oh, and this place was not too far from Keepsake Quilting, a yearly pilgrimage for me. It was a very sad day when Roger and Kit decided to sell the cabin to a relative as they were retiring to Florida. Now Roger is gone, but Kit lives on with enough energy to run circles around the rest of us. We will be forever grateful for the memories and the friendships.
