Pa, he bought him a great big billy goat
Ma, she washed most every day
Hung her clothes out on the line
And that old goat, he’d come that way.
My Daddy didn’t sing a lot, but this song was one of his favorites. I can hear his gravelly voice belting it out now, often at my request or a plea from any of his grandchildren. I don’t recall my mother or my sister requesting it – it wasn’t refined enough for them. Especially the part when the goat belched up that red flannel shirt and he flagged down that durned old freight.
The musical interlude might be followed by the story of Daddy’s experience with goat farming, or rather the decision to end that venture. Something about a goat and a pond and repeated disciplinary action leaving the goat wet and calmer while Daddy was exhausted.
So fond memories might explain why I like to see goats in a pasture, have taken lots of photos of goats, and why they end up in quilts.
The guild’s quilt challenge for 2013 required us to use small bits of fabric from Tess’s stash. The Challenge Queen does this occasionally; requiring the use of what some might think of as uglies. That certainly was the case for my envelope. Yuck. A red and black color combination was given to me, a calico and something else, 2” squares of each. I tried several things that didn’t make my heart sing, but at some point I remembered a pattern from Country Threads featuring pieced goats.
I found an assortment of farm and goat looking fabric, pieced three blocks, added a title, and used the ugly fabric as a couple of their kerchiefs. The piece finishes at 24″ x 18″ and was freemotion quilted using cotton batting and cotton threads.
A well-dressed goat appears in 52 Tuesdays, too. One of our visits to the Georgia National Fair in 2015 included attending a goat show. I was intrigued by the goats awaiting their competition. After being bathed, blown dry, and powdered, they were often wearing jackets so they stayed clean and sawdust free until their competition. One wearing a leopard skin coat caught my eye and became the image for that week in the journal quilt.
And, once a goat appeared on the label of one of my quilts, Hartwell Commons.
The photo of the live goat, not in cloth (yet) was taken at the Jimmy Carter Boyhood Home national historic site near Plains, Ga.
2 thoughts on “Goats”