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FeedPaint by Stitches
By Maggie Koerth-Baker
Photo by Eric Moore
Sells’ quilts are not just made of simple geometric patterns with folksy names. Instead, they feature landscapes of snow-covered forests fading into the distance; floral arrangements popping with a riot of color, texture, and light; and reproductions of Van Gogh paintings gracefully mimicking the master’s thick brush strokes. Her pieces are more like paintings than quilts—which makes sense given the fact that Sells was a painter most of her life, working primarily in acrylics and watercolors. Though she doesn’t paint as regularly these days, she sometimes paints a scene in watercolors to see if the design will work on fabric.
Sells’ discovered quilting in 1986 when a friend took her to a local quilt show. She was instantly intrigued and decided to make a quilt with some appliqué, similar to one she saw at the show. “I didn’t even know how to appliqué,” she says. “But I thought it couldn’t be too hard.” That quilt took her all the way to the American Quilting Society Competition in Paducah. The quilts she saw inspired her work on a unique, all-appliqué creation. In 1988, her all-appliquéd quilt, “Javanese Jungle,” won a first-place prize at the annual Paducah competition.
Sells no longer competes nationally, though she teaches and lectures on quilting throughout Minnesota. She also consults with area churches and communities that are interested in making commemorative quilts.
And, of course, she still does plenty of her own quilting. The basement of her house near Victoria is a quilter’s dream, containing multiple sewing machines, felt boards for mocking up quilt panels, and shelf after shelf of cloth pieces arranged by color into a gradient rainbow. She has no idea how much fabric she owns. “I was counting one day and got up to 8,000 pieces before I stopped,” she says. She does, however, know how to make a quilt without getting overwhelmed by fabric choices. When Sells begins work on a new quilt, she first determines the color range or number of fabric pieces she intends to use. “It can be kind of a barrier to creativity to have too many choices,” she says.
Yet Sells draws on unlimited sources for inspiration—everything from magazines and photographs to the scene outside her dining room window. The idea for one quilt came to her one evening when her daughter called to tell her about a particularly spectacular sunset—the result was a piece that explodes with pinks, golds, reds, and salmons that undulate in a sky reflected in a lake. If anything, Sells worries that she is a bit too inspired. “I make lots of quilts and I work really fast,” she says, who sells her work at trunk shows and out of her home, or gives the pieces away to friends and family. “I’m so old and I have so many ideas that I don’t know if I’ll get them all done.”
Maggie Koerth-Baker is a Minneapolis freelance writer.
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11 ISSUES (1 YEAR)
