Story by Anna Smith
Photos by Marcie Giovannoni
The bustling atmosphere in the Masonic Lodge near Autzen Stadium hums with the chatter of girls and women between the ages of eight and 80. They peruse tables and catch up with each other on events. All of them wear nametags and have at least one thing in common: a passion for quilts.
This gathering is the monthly meeting of the Emerald Valley Quilters, established in 1995. The 140 members that make up the nonprofit group are highly focused on charity as well as on providing a place for quilters to trade fabrics, patterns, and techniques. The organization also gives members a chance to meet other quilters, an invaluable aspect to the culture behind the craft. “It becomes almost like a sisterhood,” says Bev Harrison, a member since 2000.
Starting with textile traditions brought over from Europe, quilting began as an expensive, labor-intensive craft done completely by hand. With the introduction of inexpensive cotton fabrics in the 1790s and the sewing machine in the 1850s, quilting grew more accessible to middle class women. Quilters quickly created communities around the craft, which offered a new form of self-expression. Such a woman would make many quilts throughout her lifetime, the most intricate being her wedding quilt. According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, home of many historic quilts, the wedding quilt served as “an important keepsake from a woman’s old life” as she left her childhood home for that of her husband.
Reminders of home were especially needed during America’s push westward in the nineteenth century as travelers endured harsh weather and unfamiliar landscapes. “Women used their needles to make quilts that reflected the passages in their lives,” writes quilt historian Mary Bywater Cross in her book Treasures in the Trunk: Quilts of the Oregon Trail. By interpreting the Oregon Trail through their work, pioneer women created, as Bywater writes, a “natural creative enterprise.”
They also produced one of the few familiar aspects in the West’s rough-hewn cabins, bringing both color and warmth. From those scarce times flowered many different quilting styles, including scrap, string, and patch. All three techniques reuse fabric, conserving a homesteading family’s limited resources while also providing the fabric for small square, triangle, or strip pieces to add to a quilt.
In modern times, it is now the craftsmanship rather than the necessity of quilts that keeps the art relevant. In Springfield, Oregon’s traditional quilting store Something to Crow About, lush greens, deep blues, and autumnal browns sit on the shelf next to rich purples, barn door reds, and poppy oranges, creating a pastoral landscape of colors. The quilts covering the walls recall the warmth and nostalgia of a bygone time, but for the store’s customers and owner Kennette Blotzer such sentiments are very much a part of the present.
“I have cupboards and closets at home filled with quilts,” Blotzer says. “People ask me how many quilts I make in a year. Thirty, maybe 40?”
Blotzer initially began quilting during high school. Since then, the craft has taken on a much more personal level for her. After losing both her husband and three-year-old daughter to cancer, Blotzer turned to quilting for healing. “I had a big tragedy in my life,” she says. “Part of my grieving process was quilting.”
Blotzer’s store specializes in Civil War era fabrics. With smaller designs and deeper, subtler colors, these traditional materials contrast starkly with the radiant hues and large patterns of contemporary fabrics. New styles of quilting are the focus of the Eugene Modern Quilt Guild (EMQG). A local offshoot of the international organization the Modern Quilt Guild (MQG), the EMQG celebrated its one-year anniversary in October 2011. “It’s taken off like crazy,” says Becky Fetrow, owner of Eugene store Piece By Piece Fabrics.
In 2009, the first MQG was founded in Los Angeles. The idea of having quilters share their techniques and styles was boosted heavily by the Internet, where quilters could share their ideas through blogs, Flickr, and other such networks. Soon MQG groups began to sprout up in cities all over the nation as well as throughout Europe, Canada, India, Australia, and New Zealand.
Modern quilters typically use fabrics with bold prints and solid colors. Contemporary designs are often very similar to traditional patterns with only slight modifications, or as the MQG phrases it, “reinterpreted traditional blocks.” Modernized versions frequently disregard strict measurements. The result is imperfect, but also unique.
“The patterns are bigger, bolder, and brighter, and there’s more of a push to use asymmetry. Things that aren’t quite so defined,” Fetrow says. Another newer method is to put aside the measurements and use arbitrary sizes of fabric pieces to give more character and individuality to a quilt.
“It is only through working with the design, colors, and thread selection, that I become open to letting the quilt ‘talk to me’ so I can create a quilt that is truly unique,” says Mary Olson, whose work won multiple awards at past Oregon State Fairs. “The beauty of a quilt is taking a hand-drawn concept and creating a one-of-a-kind work of art.” As Olson points out, it’s easy to buy a blanket off a shelf, but a quilt has the ability to express color, imagination, time, and love.
Olson is a devoted quilter of appliqué, a time-intensive form that literally means both “applied” and “painstaking” in French. It involves sewing small pieces of fabric onto a larger background to create a specific image, often animals or flowers. Olson’s first appliquéed quilt took her around 1,100 hours to complete. She was recently accepted into the American Quilter’s Society Paducah Show, which she describes as the “Super Bowl” of quilt shows.
A major component of quilting communities is the giving of quilts. Blotzer at Something to Crow About often donates quilts, frequently giving her work to the American Cancer Society, as well as to her daughter’s high school in Springfield. Members of the Emerald Valley Quilters also donate quilts and handmade teddy bears to over 17 local nonprofits. Last year, Piece By Piece Fabrics provided ten quilts to the Independent Living Program (ILP), part of the Eugene organization Looking Glass Youth and Family Services. The Piece By Piece quilts went to high school seniors, some of whom were the first in their family to graduate.
“Many of our youth don’t have a lot of items they can call their own,” says ILP supervisor Andrea Hansen-Miller. “It was great to watch them open a gift specifically meant to congratulate them on a job well done.” The ILP hopes to continue the program in years to come.
The individual mark of its owner is apparent in every quilt, from the fabric pieces chosen to how each scrap is measured. This individuality is precisely how the art of quilting has survived as long as it has, a tradition easily picked up by younger quilters. Fetrow cites do-it-yourself television shows like Project Runway as having an influence on young crafters, inspiring them with a can-do attitude. “People don’t want something that everybody else has so they make it,” Fetrow says.
“I think the most beautiful thing when you make something for someone is when they use it so much that they wear it out,” she adds. “I think that’s the best thing.”
