Walls of new classroom ideal for displaying quilts
Denise O’Brien Van loves making quilts because they’re both beautiful and practical. A person could say the same about the place several of her quilts are currently displayed. The new addition at the Stitch, just east of the Thomas Jefferson Gardens on E. Lincoln Way in Jefferson, is decorated with beauty and very practical.
The new space, about 1,200 square feet on the south side of the building, was completed in November. It includes a well-lit classroom with nine spacious workstations where owner Suzanne Sievers teaches classes every week. Space and good light are two things quilters crave; the classroom at the Stich provides both.
(Quilters also crave fabric. the Stitch has more than 3,500 bolts of high quality fabric that draw customers from all over Iowa and beyond.)
Fourteen of Van’s quilts now decorate the walls, the first one-person quilt show. The quilts provide beauty to the very practical classroom space. They also inspire and entertain quilters at all levels of ability.
Van started quilting about 35 years ago after many years of sewing clothing for her daughters and herself. She enjoyed the endeavor. “It’s so satisfying to make something that’s pretty and useful. Both clothing and quilts are beautiful and useful,” she said.
She started “really turning them out” after her retirement in 2002. She estimates she’s made more than 100 quilts since then, although she has less than one-fifth of them. Babies, relatives, fundraisers and area veterans have been the recipients of many of her quilts.
Van approaches quilting like an artist. “It’s all about color and design,” she said. “Painters audition paint. I audition colors in fabric.”
Van’s designs are originals or “an individual adaptation of what’s happened before,” she explained.
Her “Jack in the Box” quilt is an example of a non-traditional take on a traditional pattern. The use of color, the use of narrow strips reminiscent of the lead solder on stained glass, and the creative use of borders are new. The quilt includes polka dot fabric, as do many of her quilts.
She enjoys the new use of “negative space,” a relatively stark design on a background, rather than the total piecing of a more traditional quilt.
Very few quilters still hand quilt. Van hasn’t hand quilted in about 15 years, and she relies on the machine quilting of three local quilters – JoAnn Schebly doing business as Greenbrier Quilting, Karla Janning doing business as Queen Bee Quilting, and LeAnn Monaghan at the Stitch. Long arm quilting machines allow for the quilting not only to attach the quilt top to the backing, but to enhance the artistry of the quilt top.
Of all her quilts, the one she treasures most isn’t one of her own design. She has a velvet crazy quilt made by her great-grandmother, Delpha Aubry of Perry, about 125 years ago. It’s too heavy to sleep under, so Van displays it on a wall at her Jefferson home.
Although her grandmother quilted, Van sees quilting as timeless. “It seems like an old-fashioned hobby, but it really isn’t. I love taking a tradition and making it part of who I am today,” she said.
“My favorite thing about quilting is that it’s artistic and creative and practical. I like the idea of a creative item that keeps somebody warm,” she added.
Sievers plans to switch the quilts on display in the classroom every six or eight weeks. Watch for more one-person shows like Van’s, and displays on a color or pattern theme. 
