Mummers were expected unexpected guests during the holidays when I was a kid. Larger than life, padded, playful and talented - they made for a bit of fun. I was happy to be old enough to join in that first wave of younger mummers to venture out for an evening. I had no sense of it as an old tradition or that I was part of a revival, it was simply something to be expected and practiced during the holidays.
Mummers have figured largely in the life of The Quilted Stash too. The Scrappy Mummers were our first product line. Ideas for those mummers and the different things they are doing rose out of our memories and stories. There really is no end to the fun and trouble mummers can get themselves in. Each idea was first realized in words, not drawings: short poems that added some Newfoundland English with objects like wood slides, Enterprise stoves, dories and even an indifferent cat. Oh, and a quilt of course. At that point, the mummers were real enough for me that they could be realized on paper.
The poems were included on the placement guides in each pattern as a small surprise. Their stories also influenced the shape and form of the scrappy blocks Corey designed to go with each pattern. Other ideas were rendered as appliqué bonuses that were included in the patterns that could be used instead of the mummers panel it came with. We deliberately didn’t tell people we were adding those - mummering is based on surprises and reveals after all. You often get more than you bargained for.
Once the Scrappy Mummers were underway, Corey also suggested a mummer themed tree skirt during a two day storm that Christmas and I set to work designing it segment by segment. For every mummer or pair of mummers in the Christmas ‘Round the Harbour Tree Skirt, there is a house, stage or lighthouse to set them unmistakably in this place. Like the Scrappy Mummers, there had to be a story that went with each that reflected an element of the tradition. The musical mummers, the wavering trudge from one house to the next, the mummer and their dog, the ones that rowed across the harbour - the idea that at some point they would all meander and meet in the community.
Corey’s daily posts as he appliquéd each segment was one of our first opportunities to tell to the story of a project in the making.
Our product line has expanded beyond mummers but like them, is rooted in this place and the stories of here that we all have in our hearts.