The Varied Industries Building

“What do you suppose she was thinking?”

“I don't know, but it looks like she was in a good mood.”

“I agree. I love the whole effect, and the simpleness of the overall design.”

“Look at the appliqué on this one over here. I bet she got giggly about that choice.”

“No doubt. I love it!”

My quilty friend Ann and I were two-in-a-million at the Iowa State Fair. The Iowa State Fair attracts over a million “fun-lovers” from around the world, and before the wise-cracks begin to swirl in and amongst your gray matter, nothing less than The New York Times listed our annual event in their best-selling thriller, 1000 Places to See Before You Die. The Times folks are talking world-wide, continent-by-continent places to pack in before you meet your Maker. Uh-huh. We have butter sculpture here. It's almost as engaging as the synchronized end-loader team that performed in Ossian Fest parade last week. They gave the Shriner clowns a run for their money. How can you not want to live here?

We walked among an impressive array of things to eat on a stick, and made our way to the Varied Industries Building. This is the place that exhibits quilts and other hand-made pieces of functional art. They once showed these items in kind of a dusty, hot, out-of-the way building, but a couple of years ago they erected a much nicer home for showing the blue ribbon winners and their lowly companions. Right. Lowly. We know what we're doing out here in fly-over country. You don't hear anybody in this exhibit hall saying, “You could get the same thing at Walmart for a lot less bother.”

People who make crafts for craft fairs talk about their experiences as exhibitors, and their collective observations are an echo. They speak of a betrayal, that their talents are belied as merely mass-producing articles with little cost of time or money. “I get so annoyed when people look over what I have and say, 'I can make that!' They don't seem to appreciate that it takes time and patience, not just the knowledge of how to construct an item.” If I find something I like at a craft fair, I'll buy it. I could never find anything similar in a store that would be made to most crafter's exacting standards.

No such belittling comments are heard in the Iowa State Fair Varied Industries Building. We honed in on the second floor, where the hand-made, art-to-use pieces were on display. Observers are always rewarded with the perfection of each year's harvest. Viewers in this exhibition hall speculate and discuss how something was made, admire the talent required, compliment the effort, and appreciate what they see. They wish for more hours in a day so they could learn to make it all themselves.

Looking at this year's crop of winners, I found myself conflicted. When we were at the knitting exhibits, I wanted to run home and pull out my needles. They have knitting machine specimens, as well as hand-knitted pieces. I have a knitting machine, but you know what I say, in my most disrespectful grammar: Me and machines don't get along. Garments! When was the last time I designed and made anything to wear? And hookers! I just cannot go there – there is no room in my life for hooking, too, though I would love to include it fully into my repertoire. Waaaaaah. I want to be a hooker!

Now the quilts – I can go there. I observe more than the finished quilt, and try to figure out how those quilts got from a bolt in a quilt shop to a berth at the Iowa State Fair. My distinct lack of competitiveness keeps me from aspiring to a fair ribbon, but not from looking at each years' winners. You can bet there are some who are dumbfounded that they won. Yes, we do have quilt snobs in the Midwest, but we have a heartier dose of modest quiltmakers who make quilts for the people they love, not for public recognition. They themselves are perplexed that more than one person would treasure what their needles wrought.

Machine quilting is becoming more and more common. I have tried it, and it is hard. You may want to refer to my previous ungrammatical observation about me and machines. If I can do something by hand, I'll do it that way, mainly to avoid a showdown with a dang bobbin of thread. That being said, we are seeing fewer and fewer quilts made entirely by one quiltmaker. The turn-of-the-century quilts from early in this millennium will hold a subset of rare hand-stitched phenoms. Make no mistake about it, the specimens of machine-quilted quilts we saw in Des Moines were pleasing, innovative, and done with great expertise. They were also plenteous. Hand-quilted quilts were few and far-between, and I could only hope that the person who pieced them was also the person who stitched them. We are talking a whole different category of quilts, by the way, which doesn't include friendship quilts constructed by many different hands as lintloving shows of appreciation and support.

This is not an attempt to discourage anyone from making quilts however they prefer, and in a way that gives them their best results. I don't want to leave the impression that hand-quilted quilts are always better than machine-quilted quilts. One trip to the Varied Industries Building at the Iowa State Fair would discredit that notion completely. My point is not to dissuade quilters from designing and creating according to their medium. We need all those quilts! It's an awareness thing.

My crusade is to raise awareness among quilters, and quilt-observers, of the need to appreciate and make more of these kinds of quilts from this point in history. Happily, some of my beginners are sitting with quilts on their laps and needles in their bethimbled hands. They ask questions about marking methods, and advance into the design concepts of quilting motifs that will best embellish their pieced originals. They are starting off their quilt careers knowing the value of their trouble, and that they will leave behind a prize from our era.

There is no “us” and “they” to this crusade. I have had quilts machine-quilted by very able machine-quilters, and admire the many techniques their procedure requires. This is an encouragement for more people to hand-stitch at least some of their quilts. It is worth your time and effort in history to do so. If you want to learn to quilt in an easy and unobtrusive way, I can show you. Other hand-quilters can show you, too. You don't have to be perfect in what you do, but you will most likely grow more satisfied with your results by the end of your first quilt. Your children, grandchildren, and beyond will see and touch your stitches, and be grateful for the connection.

Coincidentally, on they way home from Des Moines, I stopped in on my sister Lora. She returned a borrowed red wool jumper I'd made for The Dot when she was ten-years-old. I embroidered her monogram on the front of it in green and white, and it was our compromise Christmas dress of 1990. Morgan hated dresses, so I had her design one she could stomach to wear for the Christmas program at church that year, and then I made it up for her. The question that arose when I was in the Varied Industries Building at the Iowa State Fair 2005, was answered. It has been nearly fifteen years since I made a garment. It brought back a craving that for now I will redirect into quilting, and dream of a little grandchild that I can someday clothe in a fabric embrace.

©Copyright August 2005 Kari E.O. Burns