A stitch in time

Shirley Moseley of Camp Crook, began embroidering scenes of the Native American culture nearly forty years ago in her free time, which at the time wasn't very much since she had four daughters that kept her busy as well as living and working on their ranch with her husband, Max. Moseley designed the quilt after reflecting on the Native American culture and wanted to depict the proud and noble culture of the Indian way.

Moseley's girls said she has always had an affinity for Native Americans and their culture, so it was interesting for her to work on the project. She designed the entire quilt on an entire piece of cloth with plans to keep adding scenes along the way. Her daughters said they remember her working on the designs from time to time and time, tracing spear points and arrowheads, using transfers from coloring books, and free hand drawing the scenes and designs onto the cloth. She would draw transfers from photos and sometimes used pre-made transfers. The transfers of the spear points and arrowheads were drawn from actual arrowheads and spear points she had found while out exploring the banks of the Little Missouri River near their home or when the family went on a little excursion looking for treasures in one of their pastures.

Moseley liked to look for treasures in the Short Pines and sometimes took the girls looking for tepee rings or Indian camps to see what they could find. Moseley says her inspiration for the quilt was her like for the Northern Great Plains tribes, but she incorporated the customs from numerous other tribes to help with all of the embroidered scenes. Well as a lot of projects seem to go, other things draw your attention away from the task at hand and things get put aside.

This happened with Moseley's quilt and it was stored away for a number of years and sort of forgotten about, and then a little over a year ago Moseley got to thinking about the quilt and decided she wanted to find it. Due to some health issues, even though the quilt was brought out of storage, she still didn't feel up to finishing it up, so since her birthday was at the beginning of August, her eldest daughter Maxine had a great idea and discussed it with sisters, Joanne, Tracy, and Hope.

They made a phone call to Pennee Clanton, who runs the Quilt Connection 2 in Buffalo for some ideas on what to do. They all decided that it would be a great idea to finish the quilting project as a birthday present for Moseley. Clanton didn't have a machine large enough to accommodate quilting the piece, but she knew someone who could. They just weren't sure how long it would take and when the quilt would be back in Harding County. Clanton called on Toniette Heidron to complete the quilting process and when it was done, Clanton herself bound the edges of the quilt using the original backing Moseley had picked out years ago when she first started the project.

Clanton hosted a quilt show on Monday of the Labor Day Celebration in Buffalo and had Moseley's quilt on display with the numerous others in the gym section of the HC Memorial REC Center. Maxine and Tracy made a quick trip to pick Moseley up and bring her to see the quilt. Moseley was totally unaware that her quilt was hanging on the wall and it was a wonderful surprise! This very unique and beautiful quilt will be cherished for years to come for all of the creativity and hard work put into by Moseley and for the help in finishing it for her surprise.