The Real Quilt Lives of Madison County

I was lucky to have all three of my offspring home for Thanksgiving, lucky, also, to have a guest bedroom for each kid, each room with at least one quilt on the bed.

All the quilts appeared once upon a time in Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting magazine. Each was published with a flat shot, full instructions, and the all-important styled photo.

The styled shot, sometimes called a “beauty” shot, features the quilt in a room setting, usually on a bed, but sometimes draped on a sofa or easy chair, with aesthetically pleasing touches, like fresh flowers, maybe an open book, on a side table.

“French Country Strippy,” 77 x 100 inches, ran in 1998, a decade and a half ago, when straw hats and dust ruffles in styled photography were on trend. Liz Porter and I made French Country Strippy in response to a challenge from a fabric company. Fern Stewart machine quilted it.

Like food photos in Bon Appetit or the New York Times, beauty shots are aspirational. In real life, we bake the cake, slice it up, and savor it, dropping crumbs on the table.

Here’s “French Country Strippy” in real life, photographed in the bedroom my oldest, Hannah Fons, occupied when she was home for Thanksgiving.

Hannah flew in from Brooklyn, NY, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and rested snug and warm three nights under French Country Strippy and another quilt peeking out from beneath the pillows.

“Our Home Sweet Home” is a medallion-style quilt I made for Mark’s and my bed in the mid-2000s. The photo stylist accessorized the beauty shot with a dozen long-stemmed red roses, a framed clipping of our wedding announcement, and several artfully arranged throw pillows.

Medallion quilts involve a center focal point, in this case a House block, surrounded by a succession of patchwork frames. “Our Home Sweet Home,” 108 x 108 inches, designed and made by Marianne Fons, machine quilted by Dawn Cavanaugh.

Here’s “Our Home Sweet Home” in recent use.

My youngest daughter, Rebecca Fons, who recently slept seven nights in this bed, made me promise to report that she makes the bed each day when she visits, and makes her bed every day when at home in Chicago. She was probably showering when I snapped this stealth shot.

“Red Between the Lines” is a medallion I made in 2015 in hopes it would be curated into the debut exhibit at the Iowa Quilt Museum, “Three Centuries of Red + White Quilts.” (It was.)

“Red Between the Lines,” 83 x 83 inches, machine quilted by LuAnn Downs, published in the January/February issue of Love of Quilting magazine and featured on Episode 2097 of “Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting” on public TV.

My middle daughter Mary Fons occupied the bedroom where “Red Between the Lines” lives. Mary likes to write (in ink) in her journal in the mornings, so she thoughtfully folded “Red,” set it aside, and snuggled under a comforter instead. I took the photo below on Friday after she left for the airport.

“Red Between the Lines,” 83 x 83 inches. Top designed and made by Marianne Fons, machine quilted by LuAnn Downs.

The quilt world is blessed with many kinds of quilts—among them, quilts made for competitions involving substantial cash prizes and studio art quilts made by textile artists, their works intended for gallery walls.

I’m a fan of all quilts, regardless of genre, but the quilts I love best are the ones made to wrap people in love and comfort as they rest, even though they (the quilts) get rumpled and twisted in the process.

Post-holiday, I’m doing up sheets and towels, organizing leftovers, and re-making beds—smoothing out the quilts, plumping the pillows, and looking forward to the next time my children return.

I’m a proud member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, a group of over 60 journalists and authors writing from and about the great state of Iowa. Access all of us here.