Phelps County Bicentennial Quilt

This is the center of the Phelps County Bicentennial quilt. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Phelps County Bicentennial Quilt

One of the ways Missouri celebrated its bicentennial in 2021 was to encourage quilters to make handmade quilts.

A group of Piece and Plenty Quilt Guild quilters, Rolla, took on the challenge, making a custom handmade quilt about Phelps County combining printed photos, patchwork, applique and embroidery.

Hand embroidery provided details of a map of the county. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Another kind of embroidery, machine-made, helped to incorporate some state flavor such as the state bird, the Eastern Bluebird.

Missouri joins a number of other states with Eastern Bluebirds as the state bird. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

My small contribution was printing the historic photos of key Phelps County founders onto fabric. Those printed fabric blocks were then incorporated in to the custom handmade quilt.

The founder behind the James Foundation, a patron of St. James, population 2,000. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

As an implant to this area, it was interesting to see what the quilters decided to include. Working with the Phelps County Historical Society, they incorporated photos of key founders such as Lucy Wortham James and Edward Bishop.

They also celebrated the beauty of the area with a reference to Mark Twain National Forest and the historic Route 66.

My old employer, Mark Twain National Forest, was given a quilt block. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The old School of Mines, now Missouri University of Science and Technology, maintains the mascot of Joe Miner, making an appearance carrying a slide ruler.

The individual handmade quilt blocks are each quite unique. Here’s how the Bicentennial custom handmade quilt looks together.

Here is the Bicentennial quilt currently touring the state. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The custom quilt is making the rounds around the state as part of the Bicentennial celebration. If you have a chance to go see it in person, it’s worth the trip.

Happy 200th Birthday, Missouri!

Charlotte

A Monarch's Life Handmade Custom Quilt

The Monarch Butterfly’s life cycle from cocoon to butterfly. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

A Monarch’s Life Handmade Custom Quilt

As we start to hear that Monarchs are migrated back north from their wintering grounds in Mexico, I remembered this lovely custom handmade quilt featured at the 2019 Piece and Plenty Quilt Guild in Rolla, Missouri.

The custom handmade quilt by Lillian Collins features a Monarch Butterfly’s life cycle from cocoon to eclosing as a butterfly. If you look at the photo of the Monarch butterflies in a circle, it’s easy to miss that the green spots in the center are cocoons.

In a wider view of the custom handmade quilt, Monarch caterpillars are around the outside border, enjoying one of the Monarch butterfly’s food source.

The Monarch’s Life Cycle in this lovely custom handmade quilt. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Monarch butterflies depend on the various native milkweed varieties to guide them south in the fall. As one species dies off, Monarch butterflies move south to the next food patch, staying only as long as there is food.

One of the more common Monarch butterfly food sources is called “butterfly weed.” The very orange flowers are part of the milkweed family, the main source of Monarch butterfly food.

Butterfly weed, a member of the milkweed family, is featured in quilt corners. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The loss of habitat for butterflies like Monarchs, and other insects, is now part of nationwide effort to plant more plants for pollinators.

Missouri’s Missourians for Monarchs includes more than 43 major federal and state organizations focused on planting 385,000 acres of new pollinator foraging areas. Although Monarch butterflies are mentioned in the partnership’s name, other butterflies, and bees, will benefit from the additional food sources.

The love of Monarch butterflies was also the inspiration for Lillian Collins custom handmade quilt.

Here’s how this custom butterfly quilt was designed and inspired. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The custom handmade Monarch Butterfly quilt is a lovely work of art as well as tribute to these amazing butterfly pollinators.

Charlotte

Butterflies and Flowers Handmade Quilt

Butterflies and Flowers Handmade Quilt by Carol Creighton. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Butterflies and Flowers Handmade Quilt

It’s been a grey few weeks in mid-Missouri; typical of Januaries except for the record warm temperatures. I can’t remember the last Christmas here that was 70F, nor the Groundhog Day that marked 72F.

Not surprisingly, the groundhog February 2, 2020 did not see his shadow, forecasting an early spring. More reliable predictions have been made by scientists that as our global temperatures rapidly continue to warm, our springs and falls in the midwest will be longer with shorter winters. They’re not as cute as a groundhog so maybe that’s why some people dismiss their forecasts but they’ve been accurate so far.

So i spent Groundhog 2020 piddling around my limestone hillside garden. i dug out two concrete planters i had turned over and used the bottoms for legs, and then enjoyed the rest of the afternoon gently snapping off native pink phlox stems from last year’s crop of flowers.

Butterflies love the pink phlox so the more i have growing in my garden, the better. Cleaning up the pink phlox reminded me of the lovely butterflies in this Butterflies and Flowers Handmade Custom Quilt featured at Piece and Plenty Quilt Guild’s bi-annual show October 2019 in Rolla, Missouri.

This elegant custom handmade quilt has a traditional center wheel patchwork design with butterflies and flowers along the sides.

A closer look at the butterflies and flowers. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Although I don’t know of any butterflies with these color combinations, I do recall some that have elements of these fabrics.

Blue Sulphur Butterflies, for example, are tiny but its easy to spot them as they alight on blooming flowers because of their unusual blue color.

The butterflies on this custom handmade quilt remind me of some of the butterflies on our Butterflies Lap Quilt throws which, interestingly enough, also feature blue colors.

The story behind this quilt and who quilted it, Faye Melear! (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

So much to like about this custom quilt story, too. This is a unique design, combining the center patchwork wheel design with the applique butterflies and flowers. And even a nicer surprise, the custom handmade quilt was quilted by Faye Melear, who for years has contributed to making some of our custom handmade quilts.

Nicely done, Carol Creighton!

Charlotte