Quilter’s Life, Work Provide a Study in Non-conformity

By TERESA WINCHESTER
GILBERTSVILLE

Original. Whimsical. Colorful. Resourceful. These four adjectives begin, at least, to describe lifelong quilter Ellen Adams and her work. A member of the Night Owl Quilters in the Delhi area and the Calico Geese Quilters in Liberty, Adams was the featured quilter at the 28th annual Major’s Inn Quilt Show, held October 4-6. Adams is also an inductee of the Catskill Mountain Quilters’ Hall of Fame in Arkville, an umbrella organization for quilting guilds in Sullivan, Greene, Delaware, Ulster and Schoharie counties.

Sitting in a room dedicated to her work, Adams chatted freely with visitors, telling them about the themes, materials and special circumstances of her 33 pieces featured at the Major’s Inn. When not engaged with visitors, she was working alternatively on several different quilts.

“I put away a quilt when I’ve lost inspiration and don’t know what the next step is. A quilt can sit for three years before I pick it up again. I don’t plan. I don’t even know what size it will be, and when it’s done, it’s done,” Adams said.

“Everything I do is hand-quilted. Appliqué is my forte. I like exploring and manipulating fabric,” Adams said, adding that all her work is made with “found objects,” which she has acquired at yard sales and junk shops, as well as from people just leaving things at her door.

“I keep things in a drawer and draw inspiration from them later. I never throw anything away,” she said.

If naïve art is a genre characterized by childlike simplicity and frankness, then Adams’ work fits the bill. She works intuitively and “with a lot a mediums—whatever strikes my fancy. I like to incorporate a lot of weird stuff,” Adams said of her work.

Her quilt titled “Snow” provides a comprehensive study of her work. The quilt is comprised of 10 blocks of varying sizes, all but one featuring a fanciful snowman (or two, or three). A label from an old wool coat (from Jackson’s of New York) becomes a bowtie. Vintage broaches become buttons or merely random features in a particular block. Old-fashioned buttons become eyes. Pieces cut from a neck tie morph into birds, sometimes landing on a snowman’s head. The snowman in the center block, wearing a stovepipe hat, reaches for a gold star hanging from a scraggly evergreen. Medallions from lacework become snowflakes. And, conforming to Adams’ non-conformist approach to quilting, the bottom right block of “Snow” features a flamingo, a buckle at the base of its neck giving it a pilgrim-like air.

The largest quilt in Adams’ exhibit is her take-off on the traditional “Dear Jane” quilt, named after Vermont native Jane Stickle (1817-1896). Stickle’s quilt is composed of 5,602 pieces, making up 169 blocks, each measuring five inches square. The quilt is now in the permanent collection of the Bennington Museum and is exhibited for short periods of time in the autumn of each year.

Adams has made two “Dear Jane” quilts. The first one “more or less” replicates Stickle’s quilt while the second one, displayed at this year’s quilt show, “branches out more,” with her own choice of subjects in each of the 169 blocks: stars, fruit, animals, flowers and more.

The non-conformity of Adams’ work is evident in her life, and vice versa. Her appearance announces a person who does not abide by norms. The frames of her trifocal glasses are two concentric black circles, conferring upon her an owl-like aura. On day one of the quilt show, her spiky, bleached blonde hair was encircled by a blue ribbon. Her name tag took the form of a duck made from felting, hanging upside down, its spindly legs attached to her blouse. Attached to the duck was a sales tag—the heavy-duty manilla cardstock kind with a grommet reinforcing the hole. Her name was written on the tag. On day two of the show, Adams showed up in a floor-length black dress—a rather classy looking witch’s costume from New York City’s iconic Rubies Costume Company—to which she had added dollar bills to adjust the cleavage.

“I don’t like cleavage,” she affirmed.

Adams has lived in East Branch since relocating from Michigan in 2005. There, she owns and operates Plum Crazy Bed and Breakkfast (sic), advertised on her business card as a place “where nothing is normal.” While living in Michigan, Adams drove a school bus for 18 years. She always carried a bag of quilting paraphernalia with her. In dead moments, she said she would “just pull out my handwork and sit and sew.” She even got the male bus drivers interested in quilting and had sewing machines set up in the bus garage. They mostly made rag quilts, which they gave to charitable organizations, Adams said. When there were all-day events, such as skiing competitions, she would set up a sewing machine in a school cafeteria and get to work.

“I never waste time,” she said.

In her earlier years, Adams, now 71, was as adventurous as she was industrious. In her late 40s, she biked 9,000 miles over two summers—biking around Nova Scotia and later through Vermont and Florida. She also biked across Canada on the King’s Highway.

“Even on bike trips, I had a small piece of handwork with me all the time—and always a bottle of wine, too,” she recounted.

One of the more eccentric details of Adams’ life involves her pet rats, which she procured from a breeder. Adams is specifically partial to the Dumbo breed, characterized by its large, rounded ears set low on the sides of its head and its affectionate and gentle temperament. “They would sit on my lap and ride in my pocket,” she said.

“Dubby-Do” was her favorite.

“She would sit on my shoulder while I was at the sewing machine. I would put M&Ms in certain spots on the floor and she would jump off me and go get them. Rats are smart. People think they’re nasty, but they’re not. I put mine in the bathtub and they would bathe and wash their faces and swim around,” Adams said.

It’s often said that the only thing certain in life is death and taxes, but another certainty is that as long as she lives, Ellen Adams will be working on several of her fascinating quilts at a time, and she will have equally fascinating stories to tell.