Under Tennessee Skies: The Story

See the slide show here.

The quilt Under Tennessee Skies was officially presented and accepted by the Knoxville Convention Center during a ribbon cutting ceremony on July 22, 2009 at the opening of the first AQS Quilt Expo held in Knoxville. The opening event was attended by the mayors of Knoxville and Knox County, Convention Center Management and various AQS dignitaries. That day was the culmination of almost a year long project which began mid-2008 when Susan Eaton, Assistant General Manager and Director of Sales and Marketing at the Knoxville Convention Center, approached the guild about adding a quilt to the center's $1 million permanent art collection. She expressed her desire to have a piece showcase the rich quilting heritage we have here in East Tennessee. Susan also wanted a fantastic surprise for opening day of the first Knoxville Quilt Expo to commemorate the new relationship with the American Quilter’s Society. W e were both honored and excited by the prospect of quilting a piece of art for the center.

Arliss Barber, 2008 Guild President, led this collaborative effort. Many other members participated in or contribute d to the project on behalf of The Village Quilters Guild; they are Linda Arbuckle, Darlene Bakos, JoAnn Bergren, Sandy Black, Cindy Buol, Doris Christensen, Kathy Drew, Jolie Fischer, Ginny Hatfield, Joyce Knauff, Jean Mathews, Mozelle Morgan, Rose Remund, Diane Rhea, Martha Sanchez, Vicki Schwerdt, JJ Shay, Jackie Trombly, Audrey Vonesh and Jan Wass. In total, members spent well over 840 hours on the project.

As we all know, creating a quilt is a process with certain stages: inspiration, planning, fabric search, preparation for construction, actual construction, quilting inspiration, actual quilting and finishing. For this project, we had additional steps of installation and photography.

Inspiration ~

The creative team had a starting point in the form of input from Susan Eaton from the Convention Center. Color wise, she wanted a quilt that would live in harmony in the convention center's surroundings, have a traditional piecing element and convey a Tennessee feeling. The team's initial theme words were fall color, mountains, East Tennessee, nature, landscape, streams, trees, cabins, vines plus traditional piecing methods. Each year thousands come to view Tennessee's spectacular fall color change and our own East Tennessee landscape became the inspiration for this quilt.

Planning ~

Using those theme words during the initial planning session, we decided we wanted to create a fall mountain landscape. During the next several planning sessions we came up with and discarded at least five different methods for creating this landscape. We finally settled on the braid piecing method. Now we had our traditional piecing method and we could convey mountains with different elevations starting from a green base and moving up to the peaks by manipulating the color to create elevation levels and movement. We deliberately made a number of elements in the piecing symbolic of things in Tennessee nature such as the bottom blue triangles and diamonds which represent Tennessee's many lakes and rivers flowing through the trees in the still green fall valley. The brown diamonds move the eye into the rolling wooded areas as trees start changing colors and end with the darkest colors in the highest elevations. Finally, the dark blue diamonds take the eye into the swirling winds in the sky. The mountain skyline was created to represent three areas in east Tennessee. On the left is the medium Cumberland Plateau area, the middle is the lower central valley area where Knoxville is located and on the right, the higher Smoky Mountains. These elements were all developed with a color sketch done to scale. In addition, a construction paper mock up and a small scrap fabric sample to test the math for the three different sized sections were done. Once this was accomplished, the fabric search could begin.

Fabric Search ~

At any given time two, three or four team members visited all the area quilt shops from Chattanooga to Sevierville. We knew from our color sketch we needed a certain number of fabrics in the green, gold, red, red/orange and blue color families. On our first trip we found eight fabrics which were actually all discarded along the way; others were added and then discarded as well. During the team's 11 trips in search of the perfect fabric colors, a 6-foot piece of flannel was carried and every time a fabric was found that seemed to work, a purchase was made and a sample was added to the lineup. Several members tweaked the placement of colors and declared it final.

Prep & Actual Construction ~

Now that we had all the fabrics, they needed to be pressed, straightened and cut to the proper size and placed in position for each braid. First, each fabric was tagged with a column and position number. Then specific cutting charts were drawn so there was an overall plan to follow as to number of pieces and correct sizes for each fabric. In order to maintain uniformity, one person did all the prep work and cutting prior to construction. This stage of the process took a full 10 hours. We had another team of five for construction – three sewers and two pressers. It took two full-day sessions to complete the quilt top. Our goal of completing a flat, smooth and uniformly size d quilt top was accomplished which is a reflection of the skills of the piecing team. We now had our landscape backdrop which includes over 20 yards of fabric in 48 different colors. Our original vision included a quilted tree and leaves as a focal point in the quilt. Much time and effort went into creating the tree and leaves that were to be scattered across the quilt. In the end, the team felt the tree and leaves, while beautiful, did not meld with the quilt as originally envisioned.

Quilting Inspiration ~

We delivered the quilt top to Kathy Drew for quilting and gave her all of our ideas about the landscape vision with mountain elevations, rolling hills, stands of trees and flying leaves plus the design elements of lakes, rivers, green valley and fall wooded areas and swirling sky winds. We also discussed particular elements we wanted included in the quilting such as grasses, ferns and vines. To make it uniquely Tennessee, we wanted some Tennessee state symbols included. We gave her several pictures of the Tennessee state tree, bird a nd flower and Kathy found additional state symbols on-line. Further inspiration came from her mother, Ruby Corum. Being a native Tennessean, she has a wealth of old pictures and clippings, and she was enthusiastic about doing research on historic buildings to include.

Actual Quilting ~

A li ttle over half (435) of the total hours was spent in the quilting process. Working from the bottom up, section by section, background quilting was done. The actual landscape details were fleshed out beautifully with the pictorial quilting and extensive thread painting which was started by sketching out the first mockingbird and iris at the bottom in thread. Some thread painting was done on the bird, and then more and more was added until all the landscape details had been painted in thread. The Tennessee state symbols included and the year each was adopted are: purple iris (1933), zebra swallowtail butterfly (1995), raccoon (1971), passi on flower (1919), bobwhite quail (1987), mockingbird (1933), eastern box turtle (1995), tulip poplar leaves (1947) and the tomato (2003). The historic buildings included from left to right of the quilt are: a 1906 Corryton Baptist Church which sadly is no longer standing, the 1905 Mabe family barn and farmhouse in Corryton where civil war artifacts were found around an oak tree which dates back to pre-civil war times, the 1793 log cabin of Revolutionary war hero Nicholas Gibbs in Corryton (the home has remained in the family and is cared for by the Nicholas Gibbs Historical Society; it still contains the original belongings and artifacts of the family), an 1870s DeVault/Corum log cabin and shed which has been artistically embellished with an Appalachian Trail Quilt Block (both were built of yellow poplar logs and both were moved to the Smoky Mountains in the 1960s), the 1915 Cades Cove Missionary Baptist Church, and ca. 1854 Paschal Carter grist mill in Knox County where remnants of the original dam can still be found. All of the extensive quilting and thread painting were done on a long-arm quilt machine using almost 17,000 yards of Superior brand cotton and po lyester threads and the iris and parts of the rolling hills are highlighted with Sanford Prismacolor ink markers.

Finishing ~

The final quilt measured 79” x 89”. We had a team of seven to make, sew on and tack the 336” of binding, 356” of sleeve edges for the top and bottom plus the 36” of quilt label edges. It took two afternoons to accomplish this task. While we handled the quilt finishing, a master carpenter, Don Lequire, from the Convention Center was busy building and staining the custom wood frame that would house the quilt.

Installation & Photography ~

Finally, the quilt was complete. On Sunday, June 28, 2009 we delivered the quilt to the Convention Center. It received a final pressing and then we proceeded to hang the quilt within the framing. We only had to take it down and reposition it once before it was hanging beautifully! On Tuesday, June 30 th, John Black of John Black Photography ( www.johnblackphotography.com ) arrived at the Convention Center to photograph the quilt. One of his photographs was used for the official presentation poster which the Convention Center had made for this purpose and then gifted back to the Guild along with a duplicate of the information plate that was placed next to the quilt at the center. Both the poster and plate are hung at the Chota Rec Center in Room A. On Wednesday, July 1 st, the glass was installed and the project was truly complete.

We, The Village Quilters, will always be grateful for having this opportunity. Every member had a stake in this project and should take pride in knowing a Guild quilt is hanging in a permanent art collection!