Chenille Snake Doctor Quilt

Chenille Snake Doctor Quilt

Here's a wonderful old favorite quilt I made, a long time ago in about 2002.  It is called "Snake Doctor Quilt."  When I was little we had a local name for dragonflies--- Snake Doctor.  I thought Snake Doctors were magic, and that they would land on things (snakes, plants, etc.) and heal them.

I'd made some quilts for my children and grandchildren to each have a quilt expressing his or her personality, and had a few colorful scraps left over.  I'd just become acquainted with Seminole Patchwork, having bought a seminole patchwork skirt at Cherokee Holiday.  I was wanting to learn the Seminole way of strip piecing on the bias, so I practiced with just whatever scraps I had left over.  When this one was finished being quilted, it made me so happy to see that the black formed a matrix background and the colors seemed to jump forward.

Another fun thing about this quilt is that the Snake Doctor is made of primitive hand-made chenille.  I sewed down several layers of inch-wide strips and cut open any folds into the snake doctor pattern.  Actually, it sort of accidentally ended up being a snake doctor and at first I was just playing with the idea of sewing down chenille that I made myself.

Over the years I lost my good seam ripper used for ripping chenille.  But recently I did get a new one and look forward to using this technique some more.   I can't remember where, but I did show this quilt one time, because I remember that Debbie Duvall liked it.  Maybe it was at the Cherokee Heritage Center.

I made this quilt for utility before I started selling quilts, and it is one that has lasted 8 years or so, and is washed frequently.  It gets hard wear.  Because it has great body and is thin yet flat, I speculate that I used an all-cotton batt in black, or a wool batting.  It was mchine freehand quilted by Wavalene Winkler at Living Designs, and she used a dense thumbprint stipple which is very nice.