Folk Life Festival

Sheep, goats, old buildings, a quilt show, and MEN IN OVERALLS. What else could a country girl want on a Saturday?

The place was swarming with men in overalls, and suspenders, and straw hats. 

These sheep were waiting to help with the demonstration of shearing. (by men wearing overalls and suspenders, of course.)

Oh, and there was a train, too! This country girl was thrilled.  There was a tractor parade, as well, but that wasn’t as exciting somehow. One man sitting near me said, “I’ve seen all the tractors I want – when I was a boy, I saw the fields from the seat of one every day.”

There was even a quilt show on the grounds! The members of the Wiregrass Quilt Guild hosted their annual show and one of their members had a one-man show in another gallery.

The camera recorded images for upcoming art quilts.  Old buildings, animals, people.  Don’t you just know this guy wants to be on one of my Men in Overalls series?

And, one of the men in overalls came home with me. See, we had a goal in mind when we left home. We anticipated the dress for the day!

Yes, I have a pair somewhere, but the idea is MEN in overalls.

This was at the Folk Life Festival in Tifton.  The grounds are now part of ABAC and make up what is now called the Georgia Museum of Agriculture and Historic Village, but we who have known of it since its beginnings still refer to the place as the Agrirama, its original name.  More information about the place is here.

I’ve been in love with men in overalls my entire life.  in recent years, I’ve had fun with images of such men on art quilts.  As I wrote this, I did a search of my blog and realized there are several I’ve never posted.  Here is one of them:

This photo of an unknown child was printed on vintage linen, quilted, and mounted on a burlap canvas.

Details of some I have posted before are below:

The story of this piece is here.

And this one is detailed here.

I’m itching to play with the images of some of these guys I saw yesterday. Stay tuned for the results!

Author: Sandy Gilreath

I've stitched my way through life. Early skills in utilitarian and decorative sewing have merged with art in the world of quiltmaking. My love of journaling has now crossed into the cloth world, too. I love old songs, old souls, old words; my collections attest to my fascination with memories.

One thought on “Folk Life Festival”

  1. I was assitantcurator and farm manager at Agrirama . I sheared sheep , split rails, build log cabins, and worked mules until my stroke in 2008
    Did shear sheep after that.

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