After Kathleen Littfin’s twins turned one, the longtime sewer decided it was time to pick up a needle and thread again, when she saw an ad for a quilting class at a local fabric store in Washington, where she lived at the time.

Forty-one years later, Littfin’s award-winning quilts have been exhibited in national shows, the first being the Road to California. That quilt, which resembles a map, hangs in her entryway. She will be the featured quilter at the upcoming annual Flathead Quilters’ Guild show Sept. 19 and 20.

Her interest in quilting began much earlier, influenced by the quilts her grandmother Bessie Kalkbrenner and other women from her church would make as bingo prizes.

“I always thought they were so pretty,” Littfin said, drawn to the different designs and fabrics. “Sometimes I would sleep under one of grandma’s quilts and find which fabric do I like the best.”

Her grandmother also made her a wedding quilt, a tradition she continued with her children, nieces and nephews.

“I tell them, this is to be used and loved. You can love it to death and that’s OK,” she said, as she did with her own wedding quilt, which was made from her baby clothes.

On the flip side, “My daughter, I made her a quilt for her wedding and it’s still on her bed 28 years later without a flaw. She folds it down every night. So, if you take really good care of them, they’ll last a long time,” Littfin said. 

When starting out, she used patterns but now enjoys the freedom of coming up with her own designs.

“That’s part of the fun for me, designing the quilt,” Littfin said. “It’s usually taking something I see in one quilt and something that I see in another and combining it in my own way. You know, I might like a particular big star and then make up a border that goes with it.”

AS A former engineer, Littfin loves symmetry in quilts, which gives a balanced, formal look, and the math and precision involved in the measuring, cutting and aligning pieces.

This is not to say she hasn’t made an asymmetrical design before, bringing out a quilt titled “Uncontainable Joy,” laying it beside a traditional quilt titled “Ode to Jinny” over a couch.

The juxtaposition of the two hand pieced quilts is stunning. The asymmetry creates a dynamic feel, and the vibrant colors make the star shapes pop. The symmetrical one, with its feathery quilting, has a gorgeous, flowing quality throughout and the more muted, serene colors are peaceful and comforting. The variegated thread she used can be appreciated from the front and back. She uses a pen that has special ink that disappears when put in water to draw out the quilting designs.

“Ode to Jinny” took two years to complete, was quilted by machine, while “Uncontainable Joy” took six and a half years to complete, working on it off and on as life happened, and was a mix of hand and machine quilting.

She enjoys hand piecing for the portability. It was also the technique she learned in that first quilting class she took, although most of the quilts she makes now are made using a sewing machine.

“I worked on that one when I was traveling, or when I was going to a doctor’s appointment,” Littfin said about one of her quilts. “You can kind of take it with you wherever you go. But in our guild, there’s people who love handwork and then there are people who say, ‘Don’t show me anything that doesn’t have a sewing machine.’”

Littfin finds inspiration everywhere. It could be a fabric, color, or pattern she comes across in daily life.

“Sometimes you’re walking somewhere, and they have a floor that has a pattern in it that you take a quick picture of, because you think, oh that would make a neat quilt,” she said.

“You can start with a feeling. Sometimes people try to portray a feeling through their quilt, like grief, you know, they work through grief or celebration, to make something for someone you love for a big occasion,” Littfin said.

QUILTING MAY also be a meditative and cathartic process.

“I made a quilt for two of my nieces. One was long ago, and one was recently, where one of their children died and I used their clothes to make a quilt and they say it feels like a hug,” Littfin said.

Quilting can be as simple or intricate as the quilter desires and can be appreciated from both the front and the back. Quilts may also be embellished with materials other than fabric.

“There’s a lot of people who like to embellish their quilts with beads and trims. It’s become more of an art than a craft and people like to hang them on the walls and display them like art pieces,” she said.

In her own home, she has several quilts hanging on the walls. One of the smaller quilts hanging up looks like a photograph of a person viewing a mountainous landscape.

“For a while, when we lived in Washington, I was making landscape quilts. A local photographer from the newspaper there took a lot of really beautiful scenic pictures around there and he gave me permission to make quilts out of his pictures and then I sold them,” she said, donating the proceeds to a mental health clinic where one of her children was a client.

More than 120 quilts created by area residents will be on display at the Flathead Quilters’ Guild show. There will be quilting demonstrations, raffles, vendors and a guild boutique where people may purchase quilting supplies and accessories.  The quilt show will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19 and from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20 in the Expo Building at the Flathead County Fairgrounds, 265 N. Meridian Road, Kalispell.

At 1 p.m. Saturday, guild member Summer Swanson will give a special presentation titled, Facing Fentanyl: A Quilted Story of Loss, Love and Awareness. Area agencies, including Flathead City-County Health Department, Crisis Assistance Team, AWARE and the Flathead County Behavioral Health collaborative, will be available to answer questions and provide information on local resources.

Admission is $7 per day, or $10 for a two-day pass. A portion of the proceeds will support the Abbie Shelter in Kalispell.

For more information, visit flatheadquilters.org.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or [email protected].