For this quilter, it’s all about brilliant colors

By CHRIS PETERSON

Hungry Horse News

Carol Bean began quilting for love of her child.

“I wanted to make a quilt for for my daughter when she was born,” Bean said in an interview last week. “It took off from there.”

Boy, did it ever.

Today Bean quilts for herself and others from her spacious shop at her rural Columbia Falls home.

“This used to be a woodshop,” she said during a tour. “But my husband doesn’t do woodwork.”

When they moved here about three years ago they converted the shop to her quilting studio, complete with a large “long arm” sewing machine that does the quilting, either by hand or by computer.

“This is where I create,” she said.

The studio is neat as a pin, with several sewing machines and 30-plus years of material she’s collected over the years, all organized in a big bookshelf so she can easily match colors and fabrics.

“I’m out here every day,” she said.

Bean said her artistic eye is always toward color. She’s the featured quilter in the upcoming Teakettle Quilt Guild Show in Columbia Falls. She’s currently working on a king-sized quilt based on an abstract painting a friend of hers loaned her.

The painting is rife with vibrant colors, perhaps a sunset, perhaps something else — but colors nonetheless, full of vibrant colors.

The pieces for the quilt are hand cut and will later be sewn together. A completed quilt can have up to 90 different fabrics.

Bean hails from California originally but has been coming here for more than 20 years — her sister lives in Whitefish. She moved here after retirement.

She said her quilts are meant to be functional art — they look as good on a wall as well as a bed.

Her advice to beginning quilters?

“Keep exploring your creativity,” she said. “I still take classes. I’m still learning. Every class I take I learn something new.”

She’s also worked in other mediums, like stained glass.She also does quilting for other quilters professionally for sewers who need the final step in their projects completed.

You can see Bean’s quilts and a host of others at the Teakettle Quilt Guild Show from 9 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. April 9 at the Glacier Gateway Elementary School gym.

Admission is free and hundreds of quilts are typically on display, as well as vendors and a display of vintage quilts and showing machines.

Folks are asked to bring a food donation for the Columbia Falls Food Bank.