When out-of-town Natchez Trace travelers make a stop at the Kosciusko Information Center, they will see something that is not so common of a sight today.
Upon entering the front door of the center, a small quilting frame that seats two comfortably is set up to the right and greets each visitor. And on certain days of the week, tourists are also treated to the sight of two Kosciusko quilters seated at that frame, as they make meticulous stitches on brightly colored fabric.
Sally Rick and Beverly Armstrong began quilting at the Information Center earlier this year.
It started when Rick began volunteering at the center. Rick read about the Information Center needing volunteers to greet and assist visitors.
“I thought, ‘Well, if I volunteer, I’ve got to have something to do while I’m there,’” Rick said. “I had this quilt frame that was looking for a place to be used. … It seemed to fit with the historical sense of the place. Hand-quilting was a big thing in Attala County years and years ago. … People used to quilt at home to have something to keep their families warm, and it’s definitely creative, and you use the materials you have. It was just part of domestic life.”
After the frame was set up at the center, Armstrong began coming to quilt on the days that Rick volunteered.
“When you quilt with another person, you get to visit,” said Armstrong. “We get to chat and talk a lot. It’s just a nice social time for me.”
The quilt they are currently working on features an unfinished top that was donated to the Attala Volunteer Program, a quilting group that is no longer active.
Rick calls it a scrap quilt, because the top includes an array of fabrics.
“You can see she put these different pieces in, scrap materials from sewing. It’s not all preplanned, color-coordinated design,” she said. “We don’t know who made it, but it was donated to the Attala Volunteer Program.”
When Rick and Armstrong finish the quilt, it will an estimated 50 inches wide by 74 inches long, about the size to cover a twin bed.
After they finish their current project, Rick and Armstrong will begin working on a quilt that has feed and flour sack fabric.
Companies used to print designs on feed and flour sacks, Rick said.
“It was about a yard and a half of fabric,” she said.
Armstrong said she remembers material from 50-pound bags of cow feed being used for quilting.
“I have an old quilt that my grandmother made, and there’s lots of feed sack material in it,” she said.
Rick added, “They would even buy two bags at once so they could get two pieces of the same pattern, because when you went the next month, they might have a different pattern.”
Armstrong said fertilizer sacks were often used for quilt linings.
Rick and Armstrong are both members of the Kosciusko Quilt Guild, a longtime local quilting group that meets quarterly.
Rick has been quilting since she moved back to Kosciusko in 2007. “My neighbor was in the Quilt Guild and saw me sewing through the window. Our houses are pretty close together, and I had the window open, and she looked in and saw me sewing and wondered if I was interested in quilting.”
Armstrong has been quilting for about 20 years, “but seriously in the last 10 years.”
She said, “I had a quilt top that my grandmother pieced, and it was given to me and I moved around with it — we’re military — and I moved it from place to place. Finally when we retired, I set it up and quilted it.”
Their quilting at the Kosciusko Information Center is often a conversation starter.
“We get a lot of questions,” said Rick. “We had one woman from the Pittsburgh area, western Pennsylvania, who sat down and quilted a little bit.”
“Lots of folks would say, ‘My mother used to do that,’ or ‘My grandmother did that,’” said Armstrong. “They’ll say, ‘Oh, that’s pretty,’ or ‘that takes a lot of patience.’”
A couple from Canada stopped by one day and saw the two quilting. They said they had a quilt out in their RV that they wanted to show Rick and Armstrong. The quilt was handmade by the couple’s friend from Nova Scotia, and it featured scenes from Canadian province.
“It was fabulous,” said Armstrong. “It was all hand-applique and hand-quilted. It was gorgeous.”
Rick said she wants people to know how assessable quilting is.
“It doesn’t have to be an expensive hobby; it’s very simple,” she said.
The end result is a unique, one-of-kind item that will be treasured in years to come.
