Home
The comforts we carry, the stories we keep, and the places where we belong.
Home is more than an address. It's the familiar things we gather around us, the traditions we carry from place to place, and the memories that make a house our own.
Here at Sweetbrier, we're putting down roots after years of adventures. Along the way, we've collected stories, family treasures, a few four-legged companions, and plenty of lessons about what makes a place feel like home.
Come on in. There's always another quilt, and the woodstove is warming up.
The Quilts That Make a House a Home
There's something about the first cool evenings of autumn that makes me reach for another blanket.
The woodstove comes back to life, the evenings grow longer, and suddenly there's no such thing as too many quilts.
At Sweetbrier, we have quite a few.
My mother is a quilter. And not just an occasional quilter. She's been part of the same quilting group for more than fifty years.
The women joke that the initiation fee for a new member is $25,000 and a Baltimore quilt.
I'm fairly certain they're kidding about the money. The quilt might be another matter.
Stitched Into Our Family
My boys grew up surrounded by quilts. There were beautiful baby quilts, playful quilts made just for them, and special holiday quilts that came out with the changing seasons.
My mother is a retired social worker, and she's always paid attention to what makes children tick. When she made quilts for the boys, she chose the fabrics herself, drawing from hundreds, perhaps thousands, of scraps and yards collected in her quilting studio at Applewood Farm.
One quilt became a little town of winding roads and vehicles. Another was filled with colorful pictures to discover, an I Spy quilt that could entertain a child long after bedtime.
Their baby quilts were sadly lost in Maine, somewhere along our many moves. I still cannot think of that without tearing up.
But so many others traveled with us. Through new houses, changing seasons, family celebrations, difficult goodbyes, and fresh beginnings, those familiar fabrics remained part of our lives. Traveling hugs!
Today, my mother lives in her own apartment here at Sweetbrier. She designed it with her Applewood Farm space in mind, so she could continue quilting, crafting, and creating.
I love that the tradition continues here.
The boys are grown now, and our family looks a little different than it did when they were small. Graduation quilts have been added to the quilts already on their shoulders or beds, carrying pieces of those earlier chapters into this one.
Perhaps that's one of the loveliest things about something made by hand. It can belong to more than one season of our lives.
More Than Fabric and Thread
For generations, women have stitched more than fabric together. They've stitched memories, traditions, and pieces of their lives into quilts.
Quilts have wrapped newborn babies, warmed families through long winters, and traveled west in covered wagons along the Oregon Trail. Some were made from worn clothing and whatever scraps could be spared. Others were carefully planned, with patterns and colors chosen to celebrate a marriage, welcome a child, or mark a new beginning.
They were practical but also a way of telling stories , upcycling, and passing skills from one generation to the next. A piece of a favorite dress, a scrap from a child's shirt, a pattern learned from a mother or grandmother. Each could become part of something that lasted long after the original fabric had served its purpose.
I think about that when I look at the quilts in our home. My mother's work belongs to this long tradition, but every quilt also carries something unmistakably hers: her creativity, her attention to the people she loves, and the countless hours she has spent making something just for them.
Some family stories are stitched together, one piece at a time.
The Threads That Hold Us Together
Some things come with us in the form of traditions, familiar recipes, stories told around the dinner table, or the way we arrange a room to welcome the people we love.
And sometimes, they come folded into a quilt.
No matter where we've come from or where life takes us next, there are threads that hold us together. For our family, some of those threads are quite literal.
I love knowing that my mother's handiwork will travel into the boys' futures, too. Wherever they settle, they'll have something made especially for them, something that carries a little of their childhood, their grandmother's love, and the family that helped shape them.
I don't know how many more quilts my mother will make. I do know that the ones already in our family will continue telling stories long after the boys have homes and families of their own.
Home isn't necessarily a particular house or even a particular place. It's something we carry with us, something we create and recreate as life changes. Quilts are the ultimate example of this in our family.
For now, autumn is settling in at Sweetbrier, the woodstove is warming up, and there are plenty of quilts to go around.
That feels like home to me.