NORMAN — Carrie Carter Miller says that quilting is “a passion,” one that began growing on her after retirement from the University of Oklahoma.
Her work in the ensuing years has resulted in about 100 quilts and has led to her being named the featured artist at the quilt show sponsored by Norman Area Quilters Guild at the Cleveland County Fairgrounds Friday and Saturday.
Miller, who grew up in Enid and learned to sew watching her mother, always has been comfortable at a sewing machine.
She made clothing for her family, and for a time, supplemented the family income by sewing for others, making wedding dresses, suits, etc. That fell to the side once she got the quilting bug.
She isn’t comfortable with the title “featured artist” at the show.
“I am not an artist,” she said. “I like to do the construction, to take someone’s pattern and get into it with both hands.”
Those who see her quilts see artistry in the interplay of colors and textures. A pieced cotton top takes on a new vibrancy with the choice of a metallic thread for the quilting.
Several of her quilts will be on display during the local show next weekend.
Miller doesn’t have a favorite color.
“I don’t have a lot of green quilts, and purple is not on my list.” Pausing to reflect, adding “I seem to have a lot of red quilts.”
Eschewing color altogether, she produced a solid white quilt which was selected for inclusion in the FiberWorks show now hanging at the Individual Artists of Oklahoma gallery in Oklahoma City through next weekend.
She has entered quilts in many competitions and has lots of ribbons adorning a bulletin board in her quilting cottage behind her house.
When she took up quilting, her hobby shared a room with the family computer, “but after going to the quilt show in Paducah, Ky., I had bought so much stuff, I needed more room.”
The result was a 20x24 foot cottage built by her son. It is a place to escape to for a few hours each day, where she has her cutting board, sewing machines, a long arm quilting machine and lots of supplies.
Along one wall, cabinets conceal her fabrics, what her son calls her “raw material,” she muses.
Collecting fabrics is a part of the “passion” of quilting, she said, and road trips with quilting friends to visit stores locally and in neighboring states are a favorite pastime.
Her husband, Fred, obviously her biggest fan, adds that “she scouts the area pretty well” looking for new fabrics, and new inspiration.
Her quilts have gone to all members of her immediate and extended family, plus friends and neighbors. The quilts range from small wall hangings depicting a scene to bed-sized quilts. A photo history of her quilts fills two notebooks. Her quilts are for use, not to be considered too good to use.
“I call them ‘comfort quilts.’ I mean for them to be used.”
Most of her work is done by machine, but one notable quilt which will be on display this weekend is in a traditional Hawaiian design, entirely hand-pieced and quilted.
“I kept track of my time on that one — 1,200 hours.”
Her long-arm quilting machine is put to use on her own projects, but she also uses it in charitable work.
Members of the local guild make quilt tops for donation to Quilts of Valor, a national foundation which provided quilts for injured servicemen and women and she provides the machine quilting.
She also has made quilts for Ally’s House and Mary Abbott House, also projects of the local quilting guild.
Active in the Norman Area Quilters Guild, a group of more than 100 members, Miller served for several years as its treasurer.
