Lutheran Home at Trinity Oaks’ annual quilt show starts today and runs through Tuesday.
This year’s theme is “Silver Threads” in recognition of the show’s 25th anniversary.
Among the quilters putting their work and talents on display at this year’s show is Maymie Gaye Miller Pollock, who grew up in Boone.
In 1925, when Pollock was about 10 years old, the hazel-eyed, towheaded child watched as her brothers and sister played outside in the wide fields. All of her siblings except for one sister are now deceased.
Pollock was born with conditions that led to asthma. Instead of playing outdoors, she became her mother’s helper in the house and at a very early age learned to cook and do housework. Her mother stayed home while her father taught school and farmed their 20-acre plot.
A favorite pastime for her was sewing. She used scraps from her mother’s projects to make doll clothes by hand. As she became interested in her mother’s sewing machine, she realized she could not reached the treadle. She enlisted her younger brother Banner to help her. She sat in the chair and he sat at her bare feet following her commands of stop and go in order to make her stitches.
One summer when Pollock was about 15, she made 150 aprons for hotel staff to use in Boone. She said that was a wonderful project for her. But creating mass-produced items was not to be her calling.
Pollock now has quilt projects all over the U.S. As an adult, she partnered with an art professor in the University of Georgia system. The professor created art quilt designs on paper and Pollock brought them to life in fabric.
She has a unique gift for being able to see a structure or design and sit down with paper and scissors and pull the image together in pieces. Those paper pieces then become wall art in the form of quilts. In this year’s show, she is exhibiting a quilt based on on the La Grange Mansion in Georgia. The old building now belongs to a former governor of Georgia. She was impressed by the historical qualities of the structure. She completed this quilt for herself in 2008.
Another interesting quilt in this year’s show is a traditional “tulip” patterned quilt made in the 1930s by Matty Stewart Eller, grandmother of current owner Peggy Bocchino. Peggy asked her grandmother once how much she got paid for quilting for others. Her grandmother replied she didn’t get paid much and a penny a stitch would have made her a millionaire.
This quilt was something Peggy lost track of many years ago when her parents divorced. For years, she wondered what ever happened to the cheerful red tulips quilt. In 2002, she went to spend time with her father because he was dying. She said it was the best two weeks she had ever had with him. During that time, he gave her the quilt to bring home.
These are just two of the 85-plus items that will be on exhibit at Lutheran Home’s quilt show, which takes place 2-5 p.m. today and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday and Tuesday.
Items on display include turn-of-the-century vintage pieces, new and modern art pieces and wearable art. There is no admission charge and the public is invited. Groups are welcome.
Assisting with the show are the members of the Salisbury Rowan Quilter’s Guild and the Starry Nights Quilt Guild.Lutheran Home at Trinity Oaks, 820 Klumac Road, Salisbury, is a ministry of Lutheran Services for the Aging. Lutheran Services has a variety of elder services across North Carolina and is based in Salisbury.