Cowboy Jack, 2016
Eliza Hardy Jones
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Cotton; Machine-pieced and -quilted
Collection of the artist
Sung by: Marcella “Sally” Woerman, Oakland, Nebraska, 2016

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A lifelong resident of rural Nebraska, Sally Woerman has always loved making music. As a child, she learned to play the piano, mandolin, button accordion, ukelin (a combination of a violin and ukulele), and autoharp, picking out tunes by listening to the radio. She often performed locally, sometimes at Farmer’s Union meetings and also on the West Point (Nebraska) Radio station. Popularized by the legendary Carter Family folk singing group in the 1930s, “Cowboy Jack'' is likely derived from a traditional nineteenth-century tune.

Eliza Hardy Jones:
“The root color of this song is a pale blue sky, like the one that hung over the farm when I visited Sally. A handmade Double Wedding Ring quilt on Sally’s couch was my inspiration for the quilting pattern.”

Bury Me Beneath the Willow, 2017
Eliza Hardy Jones
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Cotton; Machine-pieced and -quilted
Collection of the artist
Sung by Alex Caton, Gordonsville, Virginia, 2017

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Born in England, Alex Caton came to live in the US when she was 12. A lifelong violinist, Caton encountered Irish fiddle music for the first time in college. This discovery was her gateway to old-time Appalachian music, which has roots in traditional British, Irish, Scottish, Bavarian, and African music. Caton has also mastered guitar and banjo, the instrument she plays on her rendition of the classic Appalachian song “Bury Me Beneath the Willow Tree.”

Eliza Hardy Jones:
“The root color of this song is a rich navy with a palette inspired by colors typical of colonial Virginia. I quilted this with a simple chevron pattern, the same pattern found in the wood tiles of Alex's music studio, which her husband built for her.”

КАТЮША
Katyusha, 2018
Eliza Hardy Jones
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Cotton; Machine-pieced and -quilted
Collection of the artist
Sung by Virginia Bartow; Hope, New Jersey, 1982

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Eliza Hardy Jones’s great-aunt Virginia Bartow (1902-1985) was a semi-professional light opera singer. During her long-term relationship with Russian-born composer and arranger Andrei Salama, Bartow learned to sing in the Russian styleperforming such folk tunes as “Katyusha,” which tells the story of a young girl who longs for her absent soldier lover. After coming to America to escape the Russian Revolution, Andrei Salama purchased a dacha (country house) in New Jersey that was filled in summers with dancers, composers, painters, costume designers, actors, and singers. After his death, Bartow took ownership of the dacha and continued its function as an artistic retreat into the 1960s.

Eliza Hardy Jones:
“This is the only recording in the Song Quilts project I did not make myself, but I have many memories of Aunt Virginia singing this song. The root color of the quilt is a brilliant red inspired by traditional Muscovite dresses. The quilting design is based on the weaving patterns found in those same dresses.”

СВЕЧА
Svecha, 2019
Eliza Hardy Jones
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Cotton; Machine-pieced and -quilted
Collection of the artist
Sung by Nadezhda Mironova, Moscow, Russia, 2019

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After receiving a degree in choir conducting from the prestigious Gnessin Music Academy in Moscow, Nadezhda Mironova spent eight years as the Chief Chorus Master and Northern Folklore researcher with the State Academic Northern Russian Folk Choir in Arkhangelsk, Russia. She says she loves the old songs “because they have ancestral wisdom and depth—they are filled with natural images.” The song “Svecha” is from the Pinega River Valley, which, like Arkhangelsk, is in far northern Russia near the Arctic Circle. It is meant to be sung as a bride prepares for her wedding.

Eliza Hardy Jones:
“I quilted “Svecha” with images found in traditional northern weaving: the elk-horned Mother of the World riding a Sun Chariot, symbols of fertility and harvest, and of the life giving power of the sun to the living and to the dead.”