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Serving Southwest Virginia for more than 50 years and now, the New River and Roanoke Valleys.

[Jay Prater] Virginia's Appalachia, rich in culture and tradition, and largely misunderstood by outsiders.

The region is a bridge from the past to the present.

This series will explore local legend and lore, mixed with the science and skill you'll only find in Virginia's Appalachia .

Today, we're exploring the popular tradition of quilting.

You or someone in your family most likely owns a quilt that was made by a family member and has some kind of special memories tied to it.

The practice has been passed down for generations, and we'll kick off our journey in Ferrum, Virginia with Neva Hart.

She is a quilt historian and appraiser with a big knowledge and love of all things quilting.

-You know, when you think of people, when you think of quilting in Appalachia, I think the first thing that comes to mind is the people.

And so many times, the first thing you'll think of is the little old gray-haired lady sitting over there, very fondly showing you her quilts.

But it is the people, but it is the stories that these quilts can tell.

And Appalachian people are very proud.

They are humble, yes, and so is their product.

But anytime I think about the Appalachian quilts, I think of making do with what they have, and turning out something that is actually pleasant and it's about the comfort.

This is all about giving.

You know, quilting is an art.

It started out as a craft, but it has developed into the modern days as being something that is hung on corporate walls, airport walls, something very artistic.

But in the old days, especially in the Appalachian area, we took what was there, out of necessity, and made it into an item of comfort and tried to make it as attractive to the family as possible.

Now, in the Appalachian region, it was a make-do thing.

It was cold, you needed warmth for the family, and you needed to whip out these bed coverings.

But a lot of the people who came to Appalachia were immigrants from Europe, and they brought this with their culture.

So the minor differences that we would see in Appalachian quilts comes from their cultural background.

The Germans, the Swiss, sometimes the French that came down here, and the Scotch-Irish, and they brought what they already knew.

This was not a new technique to them, but in the mountains, when it was cold, they had to do the best they could to keep their family warm.

And this started from the time the immigrants came, the early pioneers and early settlers, as they came down the valley and settled into the mountain regions.

So the quilting, when you think of quilting in the Appalachian area, in the region per se, I think about the people.

It's people who are making things to comfort the family, and it is the art of giving to the family, trying to make them warm, safe.

And when you think about quilting in Appalachia, it's what they can do with what they have.

And it was developed into sort of a regional, traditional craft, but they made it so lovely that we are interested in saving what we have seen made back then.

It hasn't changed all that much.

There are still people that you can find in any place in the Appalachian area that still make quilts in the traditional design.

For example, this particular quilt was probably made from woven fabrics.

It wasn't made with your fancy cottons, like you see in some of the later quilts, but this is heavy.

It's what's known as a fat quilt.

And they took little pieces of weaving that they had made.

This is probably a linsey-woolsey from some woman's skirt.

This was probably a man's work shirt, and they made do with what they had, but it is thick, it is fat, it's probably lined.

That inner layer is probably wool that was raised right there on the farm.

So it's a farm quilt, but it actually has a very nice design.

And if you look at it, it's almost contemporary in some of the approaches that we use in modern day quilting.

So in the Appalachian area, when you think about quilts, you think about the people, what they did, how they did it, why they did it.

And many times, when I was appraising, I would show people quilts.

They would bring the quilts to me to find out what the value, and they would put their hand on the quilt, and they wouldn't leave the quilt.

It wasn't the quilt.

They saw Grandma.

It's what the quilt represented.

To them, it was their history.

This was something so important to them for whatever the reasons might be, but it was a symbol of what their past had been.

And especially men would bring me in these quilts, and they said, "But they just wouldn't take their hand off."

Now, the one thing about Appalachian quilting that is heartwarming to everyone is that it was a group activity.

This was a social activity.

This was an opportunity for women to get together, to socialize, to have quilting bees, to share.

Lots of times, they would share their patterns.

They would share their skills, show off their talent.

So this was a social activity.

And when you think of Appalachian quilts, you have to think of the people as well as the product because that was really the importance of quilting in the Appalachian area was to get the time and opportunity to get together and to share.

And they made quilts for each other.

They made quilts for babies.

They made quilts for anniversaries.

They made quilts to give away as well.

So it was an important part of their daily lives, this activity of quilting.

Now, I remember in the old days of-- the "old days," where in the Appalachians, we had a frame often that was brought down from pulleys in the ceiling.

So you would bring down this four-sided frame.

The quilt would be laid out.

The women would gather around, and they would quilt sometimes for a week, sometimes as just maybe two people coming over to visit.

And when they were finished with the quilting for that time period, then they pulled the quilt frame back up to the ceiling.

Now that is something that is only seen in the rural area of the South, and especially in the mountains.

So you go into many of these old homes and if they still exist with original beams, you'll see holes in the ceiling where the pulleys were for the quilt frame.

You don't see that in any other part of the country.

In the Appalachian area, we are finding some very creative and brave quilters.

They have probably started out their learning curve with the traditional quilters through maybe somebody in their family or somebody that they have known.

But you have to understand that those people who stay in the Appalachian area are here for a reason.

They like tradition.

And so, they're going to maybe move away a little bit into traditional and extrapolate into a little bit more brave experience into the way they put things together.

They could use traditional patterns and just put it together in a different way.

They use maybe different brighter colors because now everyone can get their fabrics online through the mail.

You don't have to be worried about not being able to find these bright Hawaiian fabrics or something like that.

So a lot of the magazines, a lot of the shows, a lot of the online exposure that people have now, I find that the trend in the Appalachian, younger people, is within the frame, but still going ahead and using their creative experience or developing their creativity by just breaking out of the box a little bit.

They haven't gone too far.

They're using machines more than handwork, but they still have that little bit of an anchor into tradition.

[Jay Prater] We head to Marion, Virginia to chat with two ladies, Jackie Sailor Perry and Audra Rasnake, good friends who are both into hand quilting.

We'll get their insight about this long-time Appalachian art form.

-I started quilting in about 1985, and I was a avid cross stitcher and I fell in love with quilting and decided that I was gonna use some of my cross stitch pieces and make a quilt from them.

So, that was my first quilt.

I used cross stitch and incorporated them into a quilt, and loved hand quilting, started hand quilting, and have kept it up for almost 40 years now.

I guess the hardest part is a nice hand quilted piece takes probably anywhere from nine months to two years.

And the hardest part is when you're almost to the very end and you're saying, oh man, I wish I was done with this thing.

I'm so tired of it.

But then you finish it and everything's good.

I've won some shows at the American Quilter's Society, the AQS shows.

And it's always exciting to go and kind of stand in the background and people are looking at your quilts and making nice comments about them.

And then you're interviewed, you know, if you win.

And I think my favorite award was the hand quilting award, and that one was for Mouse Pad too.

That was a couple of years ago, and it was the Nancy Sobel Hand Quilting Award.

And to me, that means more than just like a first place or whatever, so I really was happy with that.

Everybody today is in a hurry.

They wanna get things done quickly.

And I can understand that to a certain extent, but there's something about hand quilting and you can sit and you can relax.

And it's just a joy just to sit and do that.

You can take it with you if you're, you know, if you don't quilt on a big hoop.

But I take a lot of mine with me and I can quilt anywhere because it's portable.

And I like the time that it takes, and you just enjoy it.

Some people don't have the patience for it, but I enjoy that more than anything.

[upbeat music] -In my case, I had no choice.

It was in my DNA.

[laughs] I have been doing some form of quilting since I was probably six to seven years old.

I made my first quilt top by the time I was in third grade.

Began to actually do hand stitching, hand quilting stitching, probably by the time I was in high school.

So I'm a fourth generation, fourth generation quilter in my family.

So that's where all my skill comes from.

I'm primarily self-taught.

Now, my mom was a hand quilter, and of course, I had two grandmothers all the way back to my great-grandmother that quilted.

But I didn't have to ask her many questions.

I absorbed everything I saw her doing and I'm self-taught at everything.

And in fact, I'm a master now at appliqué, and nobody in my family ever did appliqué but that was something that I wanted to do.

Well, I'll tell you, I'm gonna be facing, one of the hardest aspects for me is after I get a quilt pieced, sometimes it's hard for me to design the motif, what quilting design I'm gonna put in around my quilt.

Sometimes that can be a struggle, and I'll have to-- I'll design something and walk away from it for a day or two and let it kind of marinate, and then come back to it and see if I like it.

Sometimes the design part can be hard.

It's very hard going to a show and seeing so many of the quilts being machine quilted.

And I have a respect for machine quilters.

You know, we do not compete against each other, and machine quilters do fabulous work.

In this day of digital, everything's digital, and I think we have a couple of generations that have grown up thinking everything has to be instant.

And for me, it's just teaching people how to slow down and just enjoy the process.

You know, don't be in such a hurry, slow down.

I think most quilters, hand quilters especially, will tell you that hand quilting is very therapeutic.

[Jay Prater] Next, we're headed to Roanoke, Virginia to get an inside look at the Star Quilters Guild at their very own quilt show.

Sarah Baumgarner, publicity chairperson for the Star Quilters Guild, will be showing us what quilting looks like in a modern-day setting.

-So the Star Quilters Guild is an organization of people who have an interest and passion for quilting, all different styles of quilting.

And we have been around since 1981, for 42 years and going strong, helping new quilters come along and sharing ideas with each other.

So this is the Star Quilters Guild Quilts of the Blue Ridge Quilt Show and Vendor Sale, something that we normally put on every two years, where we ask wonderful quilters from around the area to submit their quilts to this judged show.

And then we display them for the public to come see these amazing pieces.

So the Star Quilters Guild is based in Roanoke, but we invited quilters from throughout the region.

So some of these quilts are from far Southwest Virginia, some up in West Virginia, Lynchburg, all around the area.

In the past, we had averaged about 1,100 people coming through the show over two days, but so far today, with several more hours to go, we've already topped 1,300.

So we think that there's a real interest in quilting.

People were hungry to see quilts, and a lot of people took up more textile-type arts during the pandemic.

We were home, we kind of rerouted ourself by looking back at some old styles and old techniques, and people are liking quilting now.

So it's really important that people do keep the art of quilting going, whether it's making something to keep you warm on a bed every night, or making a piece of art to hang on your wall.

It's connecting with our grandmothers and our great-grandmothers, but it's also looking forward, passing something on to our other family members and getting people interested in this.

So in the past, when you look at a quilt that your grandmother, great-grandmother used to make, it was probably made from recycled fabrics, from clothes that had been worn and then worn out, or it was from feed sacks that people had acquired.

We still see some of that now, where people are recycling and upcycling clothes, but we're seeing a switch to a lot of modern quilts, very vibrant colors, a lot of what we call negative space, spaces that don't have a whole lot of pattern in 'em.

We see art quilts where it looks like a photograph, unless you really get up close.

Sometimes it's the quilting, the actual stitching, that gives it the dimension.

So there's a lot more styles, and they're really, they're all beautiful.

You'll find quilters that focus on one area, or some that just try across the spectrum.

So one of the missions of the Star Quilters Guild is to give back.

We have a Comfort Quilt Program, where we make quilts to donate to people that are in shelters, where they may not have something that belongs to themselves.

So Comfort Quilts gives back to that.

And then there's another really special program called Quilts of Valor, where members of the Guild and the Roanoke Quilts of Valor stitchers make a red, white, and blue quilt that is gonna be presented to a veteran.

The veteran gets nominated, and then the stitchers wrap that quilt around that veteran when it's presented to show the love and support of the community.

We encourage people to reach out to the quilting community, go to a local quilt shop, support them.

Also reach out to local quilt guilds.

Most communities have a guild.

It may be a traditional guild, and they may have a modern guild.

Find people, they're always very supportive.

Quilters love to talk about quilting.

And so, get that connection and carry this tradition on so that we all can enjoy it for years to come.

[Jay Prater] Back on Interstate 81 South to Blacksburg, Virginia, where we'll meet Paula Golden.

She's a quilt teacher, judge, and a co-author of the book, "The Quilts of Virginia: The Birth of America Through the Eye of a Needle."

Paula's been involved with the Virginia Quilt Museum for nearly 30 years.

-The barn quilt behind me was created by Gwen Douglas.

She is an artist, a home restorer, and historian.

And she took an idea of incorporating items from our past and creating a non-traditional quilt block because the wall behind us actually would not fit with the traditional on-point or square quilt block.

She used the three dining room windows to give shape to this particular design.

Now, quilt blocks were part of a restoration project for the tobacco barns in the southeast portion of Kentucky, and Tennessee, and North Carolina.

The barn restoration groups used the barn quilts as a way of incentive for restoring the barns and keeping the barns up, but also reflecting the local artistry of the quilts that women did.

And now, if you travel through Tennessee, and Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, you will find barn quilts on homes and barns.

There are many quilt trails that you can look up online, and they are fascinating.

We do have a Virginia block that was documented in 1858, and it is in the collection of the Valentine.

It is a sampler quilt, and it was made by the women of the Emmaus Church.

And then that particular block was found on a quilt dated 1840 that's in the collection of the D-A-R. And this particular block is called Farmer's Fancy or Farmer's Delight.

And it was documented during the West Virginia Documentation Book.

And they noticed that this particular pattern was found in West Virginia and Virginia, predominantly in the Winchester area and down the Shenandoah Valley.

And it has a Dresden Plate in the middle, followed by a ring or two or three of triangles.

And so, a block with two rings has about 200 pieces, all done by hand.

And the ones that are in the museum's collections lay flat, which is quite an accomplishment when you think that women would have to have drafting experience or know how to draft this block, and then how to piece all of the parts together to get it to lie flat.

It's pretty impressive.

[Jay Prater] Our last stop is also in Blacksburg, Virginia to meet avid local quilter, Kathy Combiths.

Her quilts make the cut.

They've been featured several times in local exhibits.

She shares with us the ties and meaning quilting has to Appalachia and gives us a look at some of her handcrafted work.

-For me, quilting was part of my heritage.

And I think it has been for a lot of people.

And so, when I was teaching Appalachian or taking Appalachian studies classes, both, many times, I did a project or a paper on quilting in this region.

And some of the pictures that I've run across have been absolutely fascinating where people live in very simple wooden homes.

I mean, just, I don't wanna call them shacks, but kind of like, you know, just cabins.

And they're very rustic, but yet, they'll have a quilt on the bed, or they've got a quilt to show.

There's one lady over in West Virginia, and the picture is my favorite picture, for sitting outside in her yard with her quilt kind of on her lap where somebody took a picture of her.

And that quilt is exquisite.

I mean, the artistic and just the collection of color that's in that quilt is in such stark contrast to the simple life, but yet, it just means everything.

Because when you have very little, and a lot of people in this region started out with very little, I think it has been a way for people to have some kind of beauty in their homes.

But it's also been a way for people to make money.

There was a lot going on with mountain quilters trying to have a way to have some income, especially women having some income.

And so, it's been very important to this region.

I think quilting's just like any of the other crafts that have been documented.

This one did win an award.

It was hanging at the Mountain Comfort Quilts Show in Ferrum.

And it did win, but I got first place in this appliqué.

And I made this in a class as well.

I mean, you know, I went once a week or so, or once a month, I don't remember how often, to a quilt shop in Roanoke.

Kathy Combiths' Roanoke, Virginia, appliquéd in 1987 to '88, quilted 1998 to '99, tulip sampler.

So when you say, how long does it take to make a quilt?

I think you have a, what, 11 or 12 years there.

And, you know, for me, trying out different things, like on this quilt, I thought, "This is just screaming for a scalloped border."

Quilts have always had a story.

And I think that also has drawn me because it's a way to connect.

For example, my grandmother, both grandmothers, had quilt fabric stashes or bags of fabrics that were leftovers from making other things.

And so, when you see a piece of the fabric in the quilt, you go, "Oh, well, that was Grandma's dress."

Or, "That was Dad's pants."

And so, even the fabrics that are collected, you can tell from the time period when they were available.

And so, that's a story.

So for me, I think with my quilts, yes, I've made a lot of quilts.

A lot of them I don't have anymore.

I've given as gifts, you know, multiple baby quilts through the years, and quilts for my children and now my grandchildren.

So there's a lot of quilts in there.

[♪♪♪♪♪] [Announcer] This program is brought to you by the generous support of The Secular Society, advancing the interests of women and the arts in Virginia and beyond.

[Announcer] Thoughtful, functional, beautiful.

Berry Home Centers can design your dream kitchen.

We focus on customer service so you can focus on what matters.

Serving Southwest Virginia for more than 50 years and now, the New River and Roanoke Valleys.