Don and Joan Asbee lived in a old farmhouse in Missouri that was full of antiques. The asked me to make a quilt for them in 1993. They had a brass bed and their bedroom wallpaper was a tomato red calico print. I wanted the quilt to have a country look.

I chose a wide variety of calico prints in both red and yellow, the colors they wanted most in the quilt. To give the quilt a traditional look I chose a traditional block for the wide outer border. The block is called Turkey Tracks in that part of the country. I especially like this block, and thought it would be appropriate for this quilt since the area around the Missouri farm has a large population of wild turkeys. In some parts of the country I think this block is also called Goose Tracks in the Pond. The little house in the center of the quilt is the house Don and Joan lived in at the time. The house is pieced and then hand appliquéd onto the center block. The border around the house is string pieced. This was the first time I used string piecing in a quilt. After this I made many other string pieced quilts and have a set of instructions for string piecing available through our Bryerpatch Studio Internet Store. In this quilt I used the string piecing to create a gradation from light to dark in the inner border. The string pieced border is surrounded by another border of Seminole piecing.