BETWEEN ROCK AND SEA: FOGO ISLAND QUILTS AND CUSHIONS

This week, Kate Cavendish, takes over our daily blog with a series of posts about text and textiles.

Kate Cavendish was born and raised on Prince Edward Island, Canada, a patchwork of tidy red-soil fields, green meadows dotted with lupins, and blue waters. She lives in the United States where she is a literature professor, specialising in 19th century American literature. She loves to quilt by hand and to embroider, and when she teaches The Scarlet Letter, she also teaches her students to embroider their own initials on muslin. Kate is the author of misscavendish.blogspot.com. Her blog posts focus on textiles inspired by texts she's taught, with special attention to Anne of Green Gables, set on her home of PEI.

When I teach World Literature, we begin with Alastair MacLeod's 'The Boat', which is set on Cape Breton Island and explores whether a boy should follow in his father's footsteps by fishing full time, though both prefer a life of books. The boy's mother, however, is 'of the sea', and she cannot imagine any other existence.


Image credits: Alex Fradkin

There's a moment where the father entertains tourists (whom the mother distrusts) by singing sea chanteys. Like the characters, I grew up with sea chanteys, and my favourite is from Newfoundland (another rugged island), called 'I's the B'y'. I teach my students this song at the end of the semester, as it brings our class full circle. Circles are important in the sea chantey, too, as the chorus goes:

Hip yer partner, Sally Thibault
Hip yer partner, Sally Brown
Fogo, Twillingate, Moreton's Harbour
All around the circle!

Fogo refers to the offshore Fogo Island, a remote fishing community which has recently been revitalised by returning daughter and visionary Zita Cobb: she opened the breathtaking Fogo Island Inn, which alternatively resembles a postmodern ship or a mythological sea creature, its quilts and charming cushions created by island residents.

Fogo Inn quilts are stitched from vintage, colourful fabrics arranged in orderly stripes or released into a 'crazy' motif; traditional patterns like 'Robbing Peter to Pay Paul' and 'Four Point Star' also warm the beds—lightweight cheerful brights for summer, heavyweight jewel tones for winter. Cushions are knit from scraps of wool into a stripey coil or segmented into a 16-wedge 'pie'.

As part of its community outreach, the Inn hosts a yearly quilt 'hang out' day—where residents suspend their quilts from clothes lines all around the island (and submit photos to be entered into a draw for a one-night stay at the Inn). It's a beautiful tradition, as colour and pattern dot the coast.


Image credit: Alex Fradkin

Whether they blow in the wind or nestle inside on a bed or chair, Fogo Island quilts and cushions celebrate local tradition and tell their own stories: like MacLeod's mother, they are both 'of the sea' and I daresay, of the 420-million-year-old rock on which the Fogo Island Inn stands.


Image: Fogo Island inn bedroom with Fogo quilt.

Visit our blog again tomorrow for more text and textiles by Kate Cavendish.