A wonderful fan, Eunice Palffy-Muhoray, made this incredible
Sunshine and Shadow quilt for me from Akron Ohio.She works at the quilt store "A Piece in Time."She and a bunch of her students came to my signing in Cleveland
in 2003 and gave everyone a wonderful quilt show of quilts based on my
books.
This quilt was made for me by a fan, Norma Enfield, of Murrieta,
California. She presented it to me at the San Diego Quilt show
in August 2002. She put everything in it that I love and the
cowboy boot fabric used for the border and backing is just perfect!
I'll hang it in my house with pride!
Photo of story quilt with trees and flowers - The
staff at Greenbaum's Quilted Forest made this for me to commemorate my
signing at their marvelous store in Salem, Oregon. It is signed
by Sylvia Dorney, the owner, all eleven of her store employees and, of
course, Mo, the store mascot, a Great Dane the size of a Shetland
pony! The details in the quilt are hard to show in a photo, but it's
just delightful and I'm hanging it in my cowgirl/cabin motif guest
room.
Photo of Steps to the Altar quilt - This quilt was made for me by a
dear fan, Janis Chase, of Mount Aukum, California. She presented
to me at my booksigning at Ann's Books in Atascadero, California. It
is a variation of the Steps to the Altar pattern and is quite
striking, especially when you see it at a distance where the colors
and the pattern really make a statement.
These two quilts were made for me by a fan in
Salem--Sue Kreft. They are called Benni's Wedding Boots and Gabe's
Wedding Boots. She was inspired by my third book, Kansas Troubles.
She bought the cowgirl and cowboy fabric at the quilt festival in
Sisters, Oregon. The perfect buttons were obtained through my
friend, Clare Bazley, The Button
Lady. The patterns are by Chickadee
Charms. She was working on the quilts when the World Trade
Center was hit so a lot of prayers for her son, Jacob, (who is in the
National Guard) and other young men were quilted into these quilts. I
haven't met her yet but I'm certain I will when I attend the Sisters quilt
festival next year. Thanks, Sue!
This is the label Sue made for the above quilts. It's
a pocket to hold a letter explaining the story of the quilts. It
reads:
Benni's Wedding Boots
Inspired by Kansas Troubles
by Earlene Fowler
Made for Earlene by Sue Kreft
Salem, Oregon
2001
Here's a picture with a quilt given to me by a
friend. Karen is a deputy district attorney and an extremely
busy woman. She is also an excellent quilter. She
made this challenge quilt for the MidState Fair in San Luis Obispo
county. (A challenge quilt is where you are given a piece of
fabric and you are "challenged" to use it in a quilt that
usually has a theme).
The challenge fabric in this case was the red bandanna
fabric. The theme was western. Unfortunately, she
was working hard on a case at the time and didn't finish in time to enter
it in the fair. She did finish it while the fair was going on,
though, and gave it to me because of my love for western things (and
because she's such a generous friend!). I did a book signing
at the fair and learned that county fairs aren't the best place to sell
books. I only sold two books (being next to the Jack Daniel's
stage didn't help) but I did get four offers to buy the quilt!
I named it the "I Coulda Been a Contender" quilt because I
think, if she could have entered it, it would have won first place!
My grandma Webb (from Arkansas) made this quilt top for me but never got
it quilted because her eyes got too weak. She had a finished quilt like this and I
slept under once when I visited her in Ajo, Arizona, a small copper mining town (before the
mine closed, that is) in southern Arizona. I loved that quilt so she made me this top
and said I could finish it. I never have and now I can't bear to. It still has
her basting stitches in it and for some reason I just can't take them out. I display it
at Christmas time and show it when I give one of my quilt talks.
This quilt top was made by one of my great-aunts in Arkansas. It is called Path in the Wilderness and is a very unusual pattern. I've only found one reference to it in all my quilt books and it said that this pattern was popular in the early 1930's in the south. Since my mother's family was from around
McCaskill, Arkansas, that makes sense. When I was doing research for Arkansas Traveler (April 2001), we stopped at a quilt and quartz show outside of the town of Mt. Ida in Montgomery county. In the show was a quilt that was an exact duplicate of the quilt top I have at home. The makers were Etta and Myrtle Webb. The card said it was made 63 years ago by Henry Webb's mother and wife (who must be distant relatives of mine). It was a one-chance-in-a-million that we'd stop at that little quilt show and find a quilt made by my relatives.
Here's the picture
of the quilt that Tina Davis made for me incorporating all
of my first six book titles. It hangs above my sofa in my living
room and has been shown on Simply Quilts television show and its twin
(owned by Tina) has been displayed at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum in
Colorado.
This beautiful miniature quilt was made and given to me by a fan of mine,
Mary Ann Johnson.
She lives in Southern California and I first met her at a signing in Pasadena.
The name of the pattern is Grandmother's Flower Garden and it measures 6 1/2" by 7".
This lovely and fun quilt was made and given to me by Ramona Bates of Arkansas.
It cleverly uses both Arkansas Traveler patterns. It was displayed at Quilt 2000 put on by the Arkansas Travelers Guild.
