The Playhouse Quilt

Here’s the story of my Challenge quilt for Heart of Georgia 2021, Playhouse in the Chicken Yard.

Participants were to channel the little girl inside, search our memory banks, and make a quilt reflecting some aspect of childhood.

Even though I wrote up the challenge description, I had no idea what my Little Girl quilt would be.  I had ideas….so many ideas.  That’s not unusual for me.  My first thought (and most pervasive for many months of the year) was a little girl in a swing.  

I started that…sketched a little girl, even made an image on fabric, painted the skin color, selected fabric to appliqué her dress…and then….

As I remembered the trees where Daddy hung my swings (there were several over the years),  I recalled my parents making me a playhouse.  On the eve of my 9^th birthday (it was on a Saturday that year), they sent me to spend the night with a friend.  I now realize they had to scurry to get things done.  They enlarged a storage room in an unused building on our property to create a playhouse for me.  They added a cabinet, a stove, a bed, some dishes, and curtains to give me space of my own.

What a delightful surprise for my birthday gift! And now that I recall it, the time they took to arrange the surprise makes it even more special.

At some point in time, I came to realize that my playhouse wasn’t the romantic little image of a miniature house that some girls had in their yards, but I never thought about that.  It was mine.

You can see from the shape of the building that my playhouse was in a chicken house.  Earlier, there had been chickens running around, but that venture had been abandoned.  Daddy stored lumber in one end and I occupied the other.  My quilt has chickens running around as a nod to its original purpose…and to the fact that my mother still referred to that portion of the yard as “the chicken yard”.  Thus, the title of my quilt was born.

When a guild member asked if the chickens got in the way of my playtime, I explained that these were “ghost chickens” on the quilt.

My original sketch didn’t have a little girl in it.  I think my idea was that she was inside playing.  My husband and daughter insisted that there be a visible little girl.  So after the house was stitched down on the pieced background, I had to remove the back layer of fabric and insert a tiny door with a little girl entering.  The space was so small that I chose not to appliqué this feature, but to paint it. 

In my stash, I found the farm fabrics you see above. I knew those funky chickens had to roam around on my quilt.

I pieced the grass and sky (fabric overdyed with indigo) by machine, hand appliquéd the building, used raw edge appliqué for the tree trunks, leaves, and chickens.

I worked really s l o w l y on this project because I was having so much fun.  I spent an entire day stitching samples of hair to decide how I would create the stringy blonde pigtails you see here. 

Another day found me reviewing Sue Spargo’s drizzle stitch to add details to the tail feathers of the chickens.

This playhouse is still part of my life.  When we sold the property, we knew the buyers planned to demolish that building, so Jim rescued the door to my playhouse.  Our friend and expert craftsman, Tommy, built a stepback cabinet using that door as the back of the cabinet. 

He built it so the elements of its construction are visible.  He even placed the hook used to secure the door where I can see it as I arrange my collection of small things.

The cabinet is in our breakfast room where we see it every day.  I hang small seasonal quilts above it – so made this quilt the width to fit on that hanging rod.  Here you see the quilt is at home above the door.

As I planned this quilt and began working on a drawing of it, many childhood memories surfaced. I found myself planning another quilt (larger than the 29” restriction on this year’s challenge) with more Little Girl memories.  I’ve already begun translating some of those memories to fabric.  And, I might eventually finish the little girl on the swing…