Odessa quilter's project is also a family history lesson

Shari Wilson was spotted at the Quilt 'Til You Wilt Event at Heritage Church on Monday, March 18. She said she was working on a seventy-year old UFO (unfinished object). She said she had found a set of beautiful flowers appliqued on oval pieces of muslin in a cigar box in her mother's house. Wilson's mother lived in Colorado during the Dust Bowl years and when pressing the applique pieces, Sheri said she could smell the dust still in the fabric. She said her mother quit school after the eighth grade and, being an only child, she probably did the applique as a way to entertain herself. Some of the designs she used for the flowers were from a coloring book and were still in the cigar box along with the appliqued pieces.

Wilson decided to make a family history quilt by framing the ovals in coordinating fabrics and framing those blocks with smaller appliqued blocks to signify the various branches of her mother’s family. For example, she used a shamrock for the Irish ancestors, a fleur-de-lis for the French and a thistle for the Scottish. She plans to incorporate other designs such as horses, cows and sheep for the animals they raised and the designs on the branding irons they used, a badger for Badger Creek where they lived and some of the wild flowers from northeastern Colorado where her ancestors lived.

Wilson said her quilt is getting more complicated as she goes along and she isn't sure what the finished creation will look like.

Wilson and her husband Robert have lived near north Coffeepot Road for about 20 years. They have about 40 acres and are raising a small herd of cattle out there.

Wilson said her ancestors in northeastern Colorado also raised animals there starting in about the 1870s. They lived mostly in sod houses and made a decent living, but she said Odessa looks like a paradise compared to the area she’s from. Apparently, the land there has less rain, much less interesting topography and an elevation of about 5,000 feet which makes the winters much colder and longer. The area presented them with a surprise in about 1956. Oil was discovered on her great-grandparents’ land and several other surrounding ranches. Her family ended up with about 10 oil wells on their land and the boom gave them enough money to put electricity and plumbing into their sod house and to buy a new Buick each year. Her grandfather also bought some buffalo and Scottish Highlander cattle to mix with their Herefords and they ended up with a pretty wild herd.

Wilson is planning to have the quilt done in a couple of years and then enter it in the Odessa quilt show during Spring Fling.