A Collection of Original Quilts
Created by the Women of Eastern Kentucky
On Display June through September
Every summer the Mountain Arts Center presents in its lobby a quilts display featuring the heirlooms and handiwork of regional quilters. This year, the Mountain Arts Center is proud to display quilts from several distinguished women of eastern Kentucky to honor this tradition of our culture. These quilters include: Ruth Ann Iwanski, Debra Burke, Fran Damron, Sharon Barnett, Betty Lemaster, Virginia Artrip, Jo Teaford, Franceen Crum, Charlotte Goble, Brenda Salyer and David Appalachian Crafts.
THE QUILTING TRADITION OF EASTERN KENTUCKY
Created by the Women of Eastern Kentucky
On Display June through September
Every summer the Mountain Arts Center presents in its lobby a quilts display featuring the heirlooms and handiwork of regional quilters. This year, the Mountain Arts Center is proud to display quilts from several distinguished women of eastern Kentucky to honor this tradition of our culture. These quilters include: Ruth Ann Iwanski, Debra Burke, Fran Damron, Sharon Barnett, Betty Lemaster, Virginia Artrip, Jo Teaford, Franceen Crum, Charlotte Goble, Brenda Salyer and David Appalachian Crafts.
THE QUILTING TRADITION OF EASTERN KENTUCKY
It was once part of every woman’s basic education, as essential as breaking bread, spinning, weaving, and raising children. A utilitarian skill that once produced clothing, home decorations and bedding, quilting has survived and is practiced today as both art form and decorative choice. But it hasn’t always been that way. . .
In the hills of eastern Kentucky work was hard and the cold winter winds made it necessary to have covers to warm the nights. Every bed was graced by a quilt, layers of fabric and padding joined by hand stitches. Some quilts were made from tiny pieces of fabric cut from the best of a worn out shirt or from the colorful print fabrics of feed sacks. More robust quilts were made from worn out jeans or maybe a “hand-me-down” coat cut in long wide strips sewn together with a treadle sewing machine; a true patch work padded with old blankets and lined with flannel; made for durability.
Quilts weren’t always created with tiny rows of stitches, some were tacked; a process of alternating a very large stitch with a small one. The large ones were cut in the middle and two ends tied together over the small stitch to keep them from pulling out. Threads used in tacking were much heavier than those used for hand quilting; the colors were vivid, sometimes variegated and added a bit of flair to otherwise drab fabrics.
Today, quilts whether hand-sown or tacked are treasured as family heirlooms.
ABOUT THE KENTUCKY QUILT TRAIL
The Kentucky Quilt Trail is a celebration of the region’s quilting heritage as well as its historic barns and architecture. The roots of the Quilt Trail grew in Adams County Ohio where Donna Sue Groves, Field Representative for the Ohio Arts Council, commissioned an artist to paint a quilt square on her tobacco barn in honor of her mother, Nina Maxine Groves, a life time quilter. It was hugely popular quickly spreading across the county and state and soon Tennessee and Kentucky took up the project. The quilt squares direct tourists and locals alike to explore all that the region has to offer.
“It’s a statewide project about heritage, about a way of life in an area of the United States where people relied on their skills and the resources at hand to create works of art that were functional; it’s about preserving those works of art and the memories that went into making them; it’s about taking a piece of culture and creating a sense of community around it.”
-Judy Sizemore
Writer/Arts Consultant
The Mountain Arts Center is a proud member of the Kentucky Quilt Trail.
SPECIAL THANKS
The Mountain Arts Center would like to thank all of the women who donated a quilt to be displayed and Judy Sizemore for providing the information used in the sections on The Quilting Traditions of Eastern Kentucky and About the Kentucky Quilt Trail.
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