Housetop

…those images won’t leave me alone.

I thought my days of making quilts were over, just part of my past, like planting corn and picking cotton. But the images wouldn’t go away. So I made another quilt, and then another, and then another. And I’ve kept on doing it because those images won’t leave me alone.

…those images won’t leave me alone.

I started having visions of quilts. At first I didn’t pay any attention to them. They just kept coming. I tried to ignore them. I said, I really just don’t want to do that anymore; I’m done making quilts. But they wouldn’t leave me alone.

About the only thing I did when I was young to have fun was play softball and make quilts. We worked hard as children. We worked in the field from sunup to sundown. And we went to school only if it rained. I was twelve years old when I made my first quilt. It was a “Housetop” quilt. By the time I was sixteen, I stopped making quilts and spent my time making clothes. Sometimes we would make quilts in my Home Economics class. But those were always patterned quilts. Those types of quilt patterns were always brought in by other people. That wasn’t really my kind of quilt.

Someone had given my neighbor Lillie Mae a quilt, and I saw it at her house. I went home with that quilt in my mind. Later I tried to make one for myself from memory. It was made with my colors and I really liked it. Another one was a “Wedding Ring” quilt…I didn’t use the book colors and I did it my own way. I used purple fabric for the background, and red, blue, gold, black, white, and pink for the blocks. I just love color, and that quilt really stood out. Even today, color is the most important thing to me.

…those images won’t leave me alone.

In 2002 my mom called and invited me to go with her to Houston for the opening of the Quilts of Gee’s Bend exhibit. That was the first time I really had heard anything about the quilt exhibit and book. They mentioned something about the quilts in a museum, but I had never been to a museum and didn’t know what to expect.
Then we went to see the exhibit. When I got to my great-grandmother’s quilt, I cried. I cried to see our history and our past up on the walls, and realizing that “Mama” had left a legacy. She was gone. We hadn’t forgotten her, but no one else in the world knew who she was. And then to see her quilt hanging on the wall, it was so beautiful… she had been reborn as someone who people were respecting, and all of a sudden she was important to other people in a way she had only been to us. I felt like in spirit she was there with her quilt and with me. She is now known all over the world. In a way, she’s still alive in that quilt.

…coming back from Houston on the bus, I started having visions of quilts. At first I didn’t pay any attention to them. They just kept coming. I tried to ignore them. I said, I really just don’t want to do that anymore; I’m done making quilts. But they wouldn’t leave me alone. I thought, I’ve just been to a quilt show, and that’s why the images are in my mind. But the images I was seeing didn’t look like anything I had seen in the show or anywhere else. I ignored them. But they didn’t stop. So I got a pencil and a piece of paper and drew them out. I thought that would be the end of it, but it wasn’t. Finally I decided that I would get some fabric and make a quilt.

Most of my quilts are really based on the “Housetop” design. But once I start working on them, they get “un-Housetop.” I started with “Housetops.” I never really thought about “Housetops” as my favorite, but they always start out that way. Many times they don’t really end up looking like a “Housetop” unless you stand back and look at them. Then you can see that it is based on the “Housetop.” There are lots of ways to make a “Housetop.” They look simple until you start working with them. I’ve just started a new generation of “Housetops.”

Sometimes now I sit down with pieces without a vision or design in mind. I’ll use pieces that I’ve already cut and use them as the basis for my design. Once I start putting the pieces together, I’ll see which direction the quilt is going. I’ll put it on the bed and stand back and look at it. Sometimes I like it and sometimes I don’t. If I like it, I keep sewing on it. If I don’t like it, I’ll cut it apart and redesign it. Or I’ll put it aside and come back to it later, when I am inspired. Lately, I’ve started three or four quilts, but they weren’t coming together the way I thought they should, so I folded them up and put them away where I can’t see them. Every three or four days, I’ll go pull one out and put it on the bed. If I get a feel for where it needs to go, I’ll start working on it again.

…those images won’t leave me alone.

So I made another quilt, and then another, and then another. And I’ve kept on doing it because those images won’t leave me alone.