Tag: Quilt

Quilt Award at Fibers of Appalachia

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My quilt, Shaft Mines, won Talcon Quinn’s Juror Award at Fibers of Appalachia. This exhibition is at Dairy Barn Arts Center in Athens, Ohio through August 30, 2026.

Shaft Mines

This is what Talcon Quinn had to say about the Juror Award:

This was my artist’s statement:

I made this quilt for the Pantone Color of the Year Quilt Challenge. I knew I had a box of scraps in this color and similarly-colored scraps. I wanted it to feel moody like the artwork from Pantone website. Half way through the process it began to look like a geological dig. I started calling it Shaft Mines. I grew up in the mountains of Southwest Virginia. My father and brother are coal miners. They haven’t worked in shaft mines, but drift mines. In a shaft mines, there is a vertical entry from the surface into the coal seam— think elevator. In a drift mines, you enter the mountain at an incline— think tunnel or mouth. This quilt feels like both. Because I was using black, I worried it wasn’t magenta enough. I worried it was too chaotic. I worried my worries would prevent me from finishing it. I tinkered until I gave up. The quilting in straight lines rescued it for me. I love how the dark pink stitches give order to the chaos. I used 8 weight thread in part of it. My machine didn’t like it so I switched to 50 weight in different pinks.

My submission also included information about my connection to Appalachia:

I grew up in the mountains of Southwest Virginia where I was exposed to delicious country cooking and lived in a coal mining community. My father was a coal miner and my mother was a hairdresser. She was also an amazing seamstress. She taught me to sew. MY JOURNEY into quilting began when my mother became disabled with breast cancer and I was home with her. She had just purchased a new sewing machine, a Bernina 1630. She was starting to make more quilts, and while I was struggling with her pending death, I made a traditional quilt: Bow Ties. Years later I donated the quilt to charity. I took a break from quilting for many years (went to law school, started a legal career). In 2014 I discovered modern and liberated quilting and began designing my own quilts. My quilts draw upon my family’s history and my journeys.

Hot Flashes

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This is the fourth quilt in my Unmentionables series. This quilt embraces menopause and hot flashes. Unlike the other quilts in the series, the design uses only handwork and an experimentation in creating flames with thread.  

My mother, Rhoda Alice, made the appliqué girls on the back from clothes she made for my sister and me. Polyester! And those prints are adorable plus the color combinations were inspired.

Some of the embroidered words are other words for hot flashes. And, some are expressions of how I felt or I was feeling through menopause. My favorite is “Lexapro doesn’t work; neither does standing naked in the snow.” I had a few hot flashes while making this quilt and that’s why it says, “there’s sweat on this quilt.”

On the Blue Side of the Mountain

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On the Blue Side of the Mountain

Finished in 2024

51” x 64”

This quilt has a history. I have lots of hand-dyed indigo fabric. I learned this technique at Slow Stitching Retreat in Washington, Maine in 2017, hosted by A Gathering of Stitches, and taught by Kim Eichler-Messmer. That fall I hosted guild members at my home, and we dyed fabric. It’s nice to remember those times with those pieces. There are also a few remnants I received from Ana Conceicao, a guild member who works at UFab.

In Summer 2024, I took a hand-quilting class with Heidi Parkes, hosted by the Central Virginia Modern Quilt Guild. I used the middle section of this quilt as my workshop piece. I learned to be more observant about how I use my thimble and my hands. I finished it the week before the election. On Election Day I woke up with the idea to frame it with my indigo-dyed fabric. This was the first time I had used a completed quilt in this way.

I also wanted to manifest a “blue day” for the election. That did not happen, and blue represents sadness but also a community of people who are on the blue side of the mountain with me.

I must give credit to Chris Stapleton and Mike Henderson who wrote “Blue Side of the Mountain “ and to The Steel Drivers who performed it. The lyrics are:

On the blue side of the mountain where the sun don’t ever shine. So deep and dark like a hurtin’ down in my heart. Maybe someday they’ll show me some kind of sign.