New
Children’s Book Featuring a Prize Winning Quilt
Mother Earth and
Her Children,
A Quilted Fairy Tale
Illustrated with a quilt made by
Sieglinde Schoen Smith
Written in 1906 by Sibylle Von Olfers
Translated from German to English by
Jack Zipes
Simply having your quilt selected for
exhibition at the International Quilt Festival in Houston is an honor and a
thrill, but to win the Best of Show, well, there are few recognitions
awarded higher than that for a quilter in America. The winning
quilt of the 2006 Festival provides all the pictures in this delightful
young children’s book.
Sieglinde Schoen Smith takes the traditional quilt community to an uncommon
form of an appliqué quilt, due not only to its visually complex and
voluminous top, but because she also applies a great amount of crewel
embroidery, French knots and other decorative stitching, which are all done
by hand. In fact it is a completely hand stitched appliquéd pictorial quilt
that tells the fairy tale story she most loved while growing up in Germany.
Using large appliqué and embroidered letters she puts the title of the book
across the top of the quilt. Close range pictures in the book cover the
entire page and at first glance appear to be painted or colored drawings.
This is a rhyming story for pre-school age children and up. It is translated
here for the first time into English. Noted folklorist Jack Zipes was chosen
to bring the words of this classic German fairy tale to children everywhere
and Sieglinde’s quilt would show the story.
It’s no wonder she liked this story as her grandmother taught her to sew
when she was three years of age and she has never stopped. She made her own
clothes growing up and after immigrating to America in 1963 she sewed and
designed clothing for children. Several years later, wanting something new,
she switched to designing mannequins and teddy bears. Finally she became the
curator of a museum she started because of her love of Hummel figurines, the
Hummel Museum of New Braunfels, in Texas. She dedicated it to the work of a German nun, Sister Berta Hummel, who inspired the celebrated Goebel
figurines. In fact, Sieglinde had become a child model for the Sister when
she was 21 months old; her father commissioned the Sister to do her portrait
as a Christmas gift for his wife in 1942. When she and her father went to
the church to pick it up, the Sister was inspired by her again and made a
charcoal drawing as she “waddled” over to her portrait. Later this too was
used by the Goebel artisans.
What is most amazing to discover, given the exceptional quilting skills
evident in this quilt, is that Sieglinde had not been a quilter before she
started making this one in 2002. Her first attempt at quilting began for the
saddest of reasons, the unexpected death of her adult son, John Steven
Taylor. She wanted his name to be somewhere else besides his gravestone, so
she embroidered a pillow. For some unknown reason she says, she quilted the
background around his name. She had never quilted before. It took her 366
days to complete it.
A friend suggested she make a quilt and her mind turned to her favorite
fairy tale, and she wondered if she could turn a drawing from it into a
quilt. She chose the center page
of the book and began to make the quilt and
found it took on a life of its own. She kept making it until all the tiny
children, depicted in fabric and thread, were seen sewing, mending,
gardening, playing and cleaning and telling the story of the four seasons,
the circle of life. This seems fitting for a mother in mourning. This made a
quilt 85 inches long by 50 inches wide, and all her fabrics were Hoffman
batiks. The border is plain except for a graceful scalloped edge, and it is
the only area of the entire quilt that is not embellished in an intricate
manner.
The words in the book are written in a large font inside white boxes sized
to the space the words require so that the remaining space on the page is
filled with different sections of the quilt. Each section detailed shows the
activity the tiny girls are engaged in during a particular season. It will
be enjoyed by all ages.
A few words from the inside flap describe the fantastical nature of some of
the activities the quilt children engage in –
“Winter ends and Mother Earth wakes her sleepy children. Soon, the little
ones are busy. They dust off the bumblebees, paint fresh coats onto the
ladybugs, and rouse the caterpillars from their cocoons. The children make a
colorful procession up through the earth, where they bloom into the flowers
of spring.”
Sieglinde Schoen Smith takes the traditional quilt community to an uncommon
form of an appliqué quilt, due not only to its visually complex and
voluminous top, but because she also applies a great amount of crewel
embroidery, French knots and other decorative stitching, which are all done
by hand. In fact it is a completely hand stitched appliquéd pictorial quilt
that tells the fairy tale story she most loved while growing up in Germany.
Using large appliqué and embroidered letters she puts the title of the book
across the top of the quilt. Close range pictures in the book cover the
entire page and at first glance appear to be painted or colored drawings.
of a museum she started because of her love of Hummel figurines, the
Hummel Museum of New Braunfels, in Texas. She dedicated it to the work of a German nun, Sister Berta Hummel, who inspired the celebrated Goebel
figurines. In fact, Sieglinde had become a child model for the Sister when
she was 21 months old; her father commissioned the Sister to do her portrait
as a Christmas gift for his wife in 1942. When she and her father went to
the church to pick it up, the Sister was inspired by her again and made a
charcoal drawing as she “waddled” over to her portrait. Later this too was
used by the Goebel artisans. 
of the book and began to make the quilt and
found it took on a life of its own. She kept making it until all the tiny
children, depicted in fabric and thread, were seen sewing, mending,
gardening, playing and cleaning and telling the story of the four seasons,
the circle of life. This seems fitting for a mother in mourning. This made a
quilt 85 inches long by 50 inches wide, and all her fabrics were Hoffman
batiks. The border is plain except for a graceful scalloped edge, and it is
the only area of the entire quilt that is not embellished in an intricate
manner. 