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LAWTON, Okla. – For every star quilt she’s made, Romelia Kassavanoid has taken a photo and put it in a photo album. To date, she has more than four completed 100-page albums, with each  picture a different quilt, she said.

“My quilt money has bought prom dresses, school pictures and even diapers for my grandchildren.”

– Romelia Kassavanoid

(Photo courtesy Comanche Nation Museum)

“I  don’t take orders, but I am always working on one,” the Comanche tribal citizen said. “I do other kinds, but I always go back to the star quilt, because it’s the one that people want.”

In rural Comanche County, Kassavanoid began quilting by happenstance. She married a man whose grandmother was an avid quilter. Kassavanoid was familiar with needle and thread because of a home economics she took at the nearby Fort Sill Indian School. She gravitated to sewing the fabric pieces. From there, learning how to make the entire quilt seemed a natural progression, she said.

Kassavanoid puts the year at 1977 when she began stitching. Since star quilts are a coveted commodity in Indian Country, Kassavanoid and others have produced prodigious numbers of them. Practical handiwork reflects how arts and crafts works rise to art level in the hands of skilled makers, Comanche Nation Museum director Phyllis Waharakah-Tasi said.

Church groups and sewing groups in Comanche County, such as the Post Oak Quilters, were the source of the Indian-made quilts. The finished products are sold in church bazaars, crafts fairs and fund raiser raffles.

Kassavanoid has experimented some, doing custom quilts that sport everything from cartoon characters, football team mascots and lacey ruffles. But it is the traditional star quilt, an Indian blanket with a star burst pattern, that tops her request list. She has also fashioned eagles in flight and replicated the Comanche Nation seal on other star blankets.

Kassavanoid often pieces together the centerpiece star in one night of watching television. Colorbursts are common features of her quilts.

“Sometimes, I just get a feel for what will go together and go with it,” she said.

The Comanche quilt maker said she never forgets a quilt. It’s not uncommon to find them around Lawton. Recall like this comes in handy.

“I knew this one lady who showed up with one of my quilts a couple of years ago,” she said. “I knew it by sight. I had made it for my daughter, but it came up missing.”

She ended up retrieving the blanket from the new owner by claiming it and holding onto it until she could give it back to her daughter.

“I was bold to ask for it, but she was bold to take it,” Kassavanoid recalls, laughing.

Since she still considers making quilts a hobby, the money she makes from her quilts go into an envelope like a family nest egg.

“My daughters always knew the money was there and if they needed something for school, they could find the money there and use it,” she said. “My quilt money has bought prom dresses, school pictures and even diapers for my grandchildren.”

Recently, the star quilts took on the role of refuge.

Kassavanoid fell into depression after the loss of her sister and her mother. The holes left in her life by their deaths kept her inanimate and lulled. Finally, in August, she returned to her quilts and has renewed her dedication to making them.

“That was a tough time for me,” she said. “They’ve (quilts) been my therapy,”

After more than 30 years of sewing, the star quilts she has made are tucked in many different laps. In the corner of each of her quilts, Kassavanoid tucks a small custom-made label that announces her craft. But it’s mostly a formality, the Comanche quilt maker said.

“I do this now, but I know each of my quilts,” Kassavanoid said.

Kassavanoid is one of many area American Indian quilters who will have their work shown at the Comanche Nation Museum in a traveling exhibit, “To Honor and Comfort: Native Quilting Traditions,”  that opened Dec. 8 and runs through Jan. 30. The show was developed by Michigan State University Museum, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Smithsonian Institute and Atlatl Inc., a Native arts service organization.

The exhibit features Indian quilt examples from tribal quilt makers from the Sioux, Cherokee, Navajo, and Ojibway nations. Twenty-nine quilts will be supplemented by Comanche Nation quilt makers, officials said.

The show will feature interactive displays, including recorded stories, panels, quilts and photographs explaining how quilts figure into Indian communities on daily and ceremonial basis.

Waharakah-Tasi said the quilts reflect artwork evolving from Indian-European contact.

Meanwhile, community input around Lawton has astounded the museum, she said.

“This has shown me how Comanche culture has been kept alive, even in the making of quilts in our rural communities,” she said. “The response has been overwheming, people are still bringing in their quilts.”