Designed by Lily Kern, made by members of the Ozark Piecemakers Quilt Guild, Springfield, Missouri, and quilted by Peggy White, The Ozarks Quilt received a second place at the Internatonal Quilt Festival in Houston, 1999, was exhibited at Paducah, and again received a 2nd place ribbon at the National Quilt Association show in Tulsa in 2001.

(Editors Note: you can view quilt images and read Peggy’s story at Lily’s website)

Lily’s Story:

This quilt (design) really started with a poem. I had the idea of a garden quilt with paper pieced blocks and color/value changes defining foreground and background areas. After struggling to explain what I meant and some crude sketches (with no blocks designed yet), I finally gave up and wrote a poem to describe it. “My Ozark Garden”
A wash of sun and shadow,
the flutter of bright wings;
A riot of hosta and cascading geraniums
and tousled asters…
Monet would love it here!

These became the design theme of the quilt–hosta blocks for vertical emphasis, multi-sectioned geranium blocks, a variety of octagon Stack ‘n Whack type blocks for asters, and a variety of leaf blocks for foliage. Several hummingbird blocks were added were added and Peggy provided the rest of the “wings” in her quilting. But all that was almost a year away…

Well, I wasn’t that worried either, because I knew from my experience as an art teacher that the improvisational process I envisioned could work–but I didn’t know what the quilt would look like.

First came the task of designing blocks–which also meant determining size, format and value patterns as well as the block designs themselves. I used Corel Draw on my computer because it allowed me to resize and layer the patterns as I worked. Some of the blocks were complex, but taken one section at a time, they went together easily as I tested them.

Needless to say I learned a great deal in the process because my experience with paper piecing was minimal up to that point. I did a lot of revising and simplifying. Probably not enough–as Peggy will attest….

In between all this, I was collecting fabrics–and more fabrics. A trip to Tulsa yielded the fabric that became the starting point for the color theme. (“Starry Night”).

I learned to keep records of what I found where–because the fabrics often surprised us. Some of the most unlikely fabrics became the most useful–and then, of course, we needed more.

Almost 9 months later we began the construction process. Dee Ann Neal, our coordinator, and a crew of guild members helped put together 83 packets containing a pattern and enough 3″-4″ strips of fabric to make at least two blocks. The directions indicated that they could add fabrics and that they didn’t have to sew on the lines! Nor were directions given for what fabrics went where. They were also reminded that they couldn’t do this wrong–just different…

A gamble? Yes. But it paid off handsomely, because members returned blocks in color, fabric and value combinations that I would never have thought of.

Then came the fun part–putting it together. My design wall is almost quilt size so I lived and played with it for several weeks. A few more blocks were needed, mostly as transition areas, and the water blocks were made.

It was pinned in vertical strips and one work day saw it almost finished and the papers removed. It did take a while to figure out that one of the “square” blocks had been sewn in sideways and that what was making things hang funny…

All blocks that had been made “auditioned” for a place in the quilt. (My favorite didn’t make it…) Extra blocks made small “Publicity” quilts, and extra fabrics found uses too.

And by the time I could turn the quilt over to Peggy, I had spent almost 14 months with the project–and although I was pleased (mostly) with the result, I was very glad to be done with it.

To see that Peggy’s quilting had captured the spirit of the design and made it a quilt to look at again and again, was a true pleasure.

To have it accepted at Houston and then win a second place award was thrilling for all of us. There were many people creatively involved with this quilt–some of whom had never participated in a group quilt before. The true credit goes to all of them. It is a much better quilt than I would have made by myself!