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If Rosemary Garten had her druthers, this longtime Independence resident would rather quilt than do anything else – and she’s not kidding.
Calling herself a “pretty intense quilter,” Rosemary says that when she starts a quilt and has an entire day to work on it, she doesn’t want to stop for anything – not even to eat. Time is too precious.
“That’s my day,” says the retired schoolteacher who taught 25 years in the Fort Osage School District. “But I don’t have many days like that.”
“I can’t think of anything I’d rather do now (than quilting,)” says Rosemary, who is this year’s featured quilter at the 24th annual Calico Cut-ups Quilt Show. The show runs Feb. 10 and 11 at The Salvation Army Independence Community Center, 14700 E. Truman Road. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days. Admission is free.
What is it about quilting that has captured her heart?
“There is so much about it I love. Let’s begin with the fabric itself. The lovely colors and the wonderful feel of the fabric,” she says, gently waving her hands in front of her as though she’s touching fabric. Then there’s “the way colors blend together,” she continues, and “the creative ways you can use them together.”
Says Rosemary: “That’s the beginning. And, of course, (there’s) the creative process of seeing something grow from a pile of little pieces, and you are the one who is assembling it and making it look like something new and creative. It just fills my heart.”
Even though she has sewn most of her life, Rosemary hasn’t always embraced quilting. It wasn’t until Dora Marks, a longtime friend, introduced her to quilting before retiring in 2000 that she became interested in the art.
“I would watch her (quilt) and think, ‘Oh, that is what I want to do. But I just don’t have time as a teacher,’ ” she recalls, confessing teaching consumed her busy life. However, when she retired, she thought: “Now, maybe I can quilt.”
Wanting to quilt but not knowing how, Rosemary purchased a quilting magazine, brought it to a quilt show at the Roger T. Sermon Community Center in Independence and began looking for fabrics to re-create the bright blue and yellow quilt featured on the magazine cover.
“I didn’t have a clue what I wanted,” Rosemary says, recalling that when she returned the following day to the Sermon Center to pick up some material from a vendor, something wondrous happened.
If Rosemary Garten had her druthers, this longtime Independence resident would rather quilt than do anything else – and she’s not kidding.
Calling herself a “pretty intense quilter,” Rosemary says that when she starts a quilt and has an entire day to work on it, she doesn’t want to stop for anything – not even to eat. Time is too precious.
“That’s my day,” says the retired schoolteacher who taught 25 years in the Fort Osage School District. “But I don’t have many days like that.”
“I can’t think of anything I’d rather do now (than quilting,)” says Rosemary, who is this year’s featured quilter at the 24th annual Calico Cut-ups Quilt Show. The show runs Feb. 10 and 11 at The Salvation Army Independence Community Center, 14700 E. Truman Road. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days. Admission is free.
What is it about quilting that has captured her heart?
“There is so much about it I love. Let’s begin with the fabric itself. The lovely colors and the wonderful feel of the fabric,” she says, gently waving her hands in front of her as though she’s touching fabric. Then there’s “the way colors blend together,” she continues, and “the creative ways you can use them together.”
Says Rosemary: “That’s the beginning. And, of course, (there’s) the creative process of seeing something grow from a pile of little pieces, and you are the one who is assembling it and making it look like something new and creative. It just fills my heart.”
Even though she has sewn most of her life, Rosemary hasn’t always embraced quilting. It wasn’t until Dora Marks, a longtime friend, introduced her to quilting before retiring in 2000 that she became interested in the art.
“I would watch her (quilt) and think, ‘Oh, that is what I want to do. But I just don’t have time as a teacher,’ ” she recalls, confessing teaching consumed her busy life. However, when she retired, she thought: “Now, maybe I can quilt.”
Wanting to quilt but not knowing how, Rosemary purchased a quilting magazine, brought it to a quilt show at the Roger T. Sermon Community Center in Independence and began looking for fabrics to re-create the bright blue and yellow quilt featured on the magazine cover.
“I didn’t have a clue what I wanted,” Rosemary says, recalling that when she returned the following day to the Sermon Center to pick up some material from a vendor, something wondrous happened.
“This little, wonderful, unobtrusive white-haired lady came up to me and said, ‘You need to come to Calico Cut-ups.’ And it was Millie Hohimer, a total stranger, who told her to bring a yard stick, a cutting mat and a rotary cutter to the next meeting and she would help her get started.
“I (reluctantly) went and Millie took me in hand and taught me how to rotary cut – the rest is history.”
Most quilters never forget their first quilt, and Rosemary is no exception. The yellow and white regular-size quilt, with its blue and yellow baskets, was Rosemary’s gift to her granddaughter, Jessica Elliott, on her 16th birthday.
“And let me tell you, just to jump in and start hand-quilting on your first quilt is kind of an accomplishment,” she professes. “I started going around (the quilt), and by the time I could start a border and get back around the quilt to the end of the border, I would say, ‘Oh, my gosh. Those stitches aren’t the same. I am improving.’ ”
And she continues to improve as her 20 to 25 quilts attest.
Ask Rosemary what her sewing strengths are, and she replies, “Not many.” She describes herself as a “very average quilter” who is “precise” – with all the corners in the right place and not cut off.
She’ll also tell you she’s not a creative artist.
“I am not an artist as well as a quilter,” she says. “I quilt because of the love I have in me. It’s a way for me to create. But I recognize that I have limitations as a quilter and that my style is probably not what is going to win ribbons.”
But winning ribbons isn’t why Rosemary quilts. It’s her passion – ribbons or not – for an art she cannot get enough of. It has consumed her.
“I would love to do it all the time,” she says, noting that some days she doesn’t quilt at all because of her busy schedule. But when time allows, quilting is one of the first things she wants to do.
It’s not binding nor cutting out pieces that lights up Rosemary. Her greatest pleasure is piecing the quilt together.
“I like getting (the other things) out of the way so I can just piece and put them together, see them take shape and (then) pet them,” she explains with a chuckle. “Some people like to pet their cats, but I like to pet my fabric.”
Rosemary wishes finding the right fabric was as delightful as piecing the quilt. But it’s not.
“For me, the hardest part of quilting is getting the right fabrics. That’s a challenge,” she says, explaining some people do it more naturally than others. “It doesn’t seem to come naturally to me.”
Of all the full-size quilts Rosemary has created over the past 10 years, her greatest technical accomplishment, she says, was “Blossoms in Blue,” a large appliqué quilt that captured a red ribbon in a 2009 quilt show at the Sermon Center. Assisting was Christine Koepke, who did the machine work.
On the quilt label, Rosemary wrote: “This 2008 Kansas City Star block of the month quilt was my baptism under fire in appliqué ... sometime I wondered why I started but was happy with the outcome ...”
While pleased with her “baptism under fire in appliqué,” Rosemary believes her greatest achievement as a quilter was making each of her grandchildren a full-size hand-quilted work.
Says Rosemary: “Hand-quilting doesn’t fit into our society (today) as it use to. (Quilters) are too busy ... they don’t sit around and take the time to hand quilt. ... Most of the quilters these days are either machine-quilting them by themselves or they have somebody else to machine-quilt them.”
This year’s show, featuring about 100 quilts, includes an Opportunity Quilt that will be given away in a drawing on Saturday, Feb. 11, at the show’s conclusion. Tickets are $1 each or 6 for $5. They can be purchased at the door.
Called “Chocolate Covered Cherries,” the queen-size Opportunity Quilt is a variation of the Log Cabin block and is created with jelly rolls made with inch-and-a-half strips.
The show also features 50 charity quilts earmarked for Hope House and The Salvation Army. In addition, there are vendors, quilting demonstrations throughout the day, a scissors/knife sharpener, food concessions and an Opportunity basket giveaway both days.
With more than 10 years of quilting to her credit, Rosemary has this advice for beginning quilters: “Don’t be uptight about quilting – just enjoy it. Don’t worry. Relax and just do it. If you make a mistake, you make a mistake. You will get better. We all did.”
And the best advice Rosemary ever received from a fellow quilter? “Don’t tell anyone where your mistakes are in a quilt. That’s good advice, isn’t it?” she quips.
As for the future, Rosemary says she will continue to quilt as long as she can. Then adds with a chuckle, “I am trying to figure out how the nursing home is going to accommodate all my equipment.”
