The Quilt Trail Open House Tour was Saturday morning, with the sites that were also businesses staying open their regular hours. I always include a brochure about the Quilt Trail in my relocation packets and people who are just getting acquainted with the area are fascinated by coming upon a big old barn with a bright quit design hanging on it.
They're 4x4 paintings, some done by schools, some by individual artists, that show the world a design from some grandma's or great-grandma's artistry. Many of the barns are on still-working farms; some now house crafts displays, jams and jellies, needlework, autiques. The website, www.QuiltTrail.org, has pages devoted to each site with its quilt design and some of the history of the family and the location. It's fascinating reading even if you're not coming to Northeast Tennessee, and it may be enough to lure you here.
Visitors and newcomers are always pleased with realizing that in the Tri-Cities area of Tennessee, they can be in the midst of history and beautiful scenery and still be within ten or fifteen minutes of up-to-the-minute urban amenities.
Come for a vacation and if you fall in love, I'll 
help you find a good place to settle. This is a great place for retirement or semi-retirement, for folks who love history, scenery, fishing, hiking, quilting, gardening. It's ideal for people who want both the calmer life of a relatively small town (about 58,000) and the ambiance that comes with having a state university, schools of medicine and pharmacy, several other colleges. More information about these are on www.TNTriCitiesHomes.com, which has lots of links.
Because buyers are so fascinated by the quilt designs, I intended to spend most of Saturday visiting some sites that I'd only driven by. It would be fun to meet the families, some of whom had been here for generations and hear first-hand their stories. I had the map in the brochure I send others, but planning my route took longer than I anticipated, because I couldn't go to all of them and the designs I most wanted to see were scattered over several counties. I realized at about 9:30 Saturday morning that I should have plotted what seemed like the best ones and done my own verison of Mapquest for my neighborhood newsletter. Too late.
And I couldn't decide which ones to choose anyway - did I want the ones with the most interesting history, the ones with the most beautiful designs, the ones most conveniently located? The phone rang and I spent too long on that and finally got to visit only two of the open sites in JOhnson City. Either of them would have been a day well spent. I was delighted. Both deserve more description than I have room for here - watch for further developments.
The Thomas Farm was a surprise to me. It's down a street off a main road in town, with as far as I knew, only blocks of commercial buildings - nothing I'd ever needed or paid any attention to. But there it was - beyond all that was a farm that has been in the same family since 1848.
Marcella Thomas Epperson told me how her great grandparents bought the land and in 1889 gave it to their son Thomas and his new wife, Barbara. She showed me a picture of the house he brought his bride to and told me how Barbara eventually wanted a more substantial house, but he insisted that the barn was their livelihood and the barn came first.. The barn was finished in 1898 and the substantial brick home with the wrap-around porch was built in 1915. The architecture of the barn is fascinating. and she showed me the treasured quilt made by her grandmother which is the inspiration for the design on the barn.
She remembers when the farm had horses, mules, chickens, hogs, daity cattle and guineas when she was growing up. Having seen first-hand how hard the life of a farmer was, she said she'd never marry one, and she didn't. Her husband was a teacher in Boone, North Carolina. She says she's not a quilter, but she is a gracious entertainer and the table of goodies was worth a picture.
Another guest while I was there was Linda Poland, who does a number of tours of the area - quilts, history, legends, music. For descriptions, see www.positivesolutionstours.com .
My next stop was the Knob Creek Museum. Mr. and Mrs. Holley and their treasures deserve a separate post. It was a fascinating visit and I'll go back with some old books and pictures for them. It was especially fun to realize that I could see my hill from their porch.
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