Chattanooga Times Free Press: Workshop in Dalton, GA to teach how to make tufted bedspreads, origin of area's large carpet industry
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Dalton workshop teaches how to make tufted bedspreads, the origin of Northwest Georgia’s carpet industry
9 hours, 6 minutes ago by Ignacio Perez
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Contributed Photo / Participants attend a heritage arts workshop about Catherine Evans Whitener, the woman who first made tufted bedspreads in the region, at the Creative Arts Guild in Dalton.
DALTON — Dalton is not like other Georgia towns, Patty Spanjer said. The industry here in the "Carpet Capital of the World" was started by a woman, something that was unheard of in the late 1800s. As she spoke, Spanjer forced a thick needle through a patch of cloth. She wiggled the needle back and forth to get the heavy yarn to follow through.
"I don't have the strength for it anymore, and if I had a bigger needle, I would be fine," Spanjer said.
Spanjer was learning the craft of candlewick tufting at a workshop last weekend at the Creative Arts Guild in Dalton. Participants learned how to create their own tufted bedspreads by practicing on a small square cloth with a printed design.
Tina Scibilia sat next to Spanjer, stitching her own piece of cloth. She commented on her incredulity that a young girl started the carpet industry in the late 1800s with this same technique.
Lee Ann Cline led the workshop, part of a larger series of lectures tracing the history of textile arts in the region. She had only tried candlewick tufting a few times before the workshop, but she has always been inspired by the craft, especially after discovering an antique bedspread a caretaker for her grandparents left behind. Cline estimated the bedspread was easily 100 years old.
The process involves sewing a running stitch along a pattern, but leaving wide loops on one side to be trimmed down at the end. Since no knot is tied, the cloth is boiled for five minutes to get the thread to set. It was nearly identical to the techniques Catherine Evans Whitener had used when she made her first tufted bedspread just before the year 1900.
"It's interesting you actually boil it. I never would have thought of that," Scibilia said.
Contributed Photo / A quilt is used as an example during Lea Lane's "Southern Comforters Quilts and Coverlets from the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts" at Dalton State College in September, part of the textile and fiber arts lecture series from the Bandy Heritage Center.
Whitener, born just outside of Dalton in 1880, decided to make her first bedspread at the age of 15, according to a presentation by Matthew Gramling — the director of the Bandy Heritage Center in Dalton — after seeing one that had been kept in her family for at least a generation. Whitener sold her first tufted bedspread for $2.50, valuing her work at $1.25 and the material at $1.25. At that time, most men weren't making more than a dollar a day, so Whitener hesitated to charge more.
She went on to create various techniques to print designs on bedspreads like ironing them on with animal fat. Whitener recruited women around the neighborhood to help her fulfill orders as demand grew, and the industry developed around her as cotton mills and dye factories sprouted in the region. This became the genesis of what would become the textile industry of Northwest Georgia.
(READ MORE: Dalton based flooring company installs new carpets in Georgia Capitol)
One of the participants in the weekend workshop, Tiffany Boyd, 26, did a project on the history of candlewick tufting in sixth grade, and now she was doing it on her own.
"I wanted to learn how to make it because they are so pretty," Boyd said.
The only man out of the 22 participants, Alex Paul Loza, is a sculptor from Ooltewah known for work such as the Little Debbie sculpture in Little Debbie Park. He said he was at the workshop for research purposes.
"For me, it's another form of sculpture. Instead of using clay, I'm using yarn," Loza said.
Through Dalton's Bandy Heritage Center, a series of lecturers and workshops has mapped out the history of textile arts in Northwest Georgia, from the traditional techniques of the Cherokee to the beginnings of the carpet industry through the tufted bedspreads of Catherine Evans Whitener. This industry is largely attributed to Dalton's growth in the past 100 years as the center of a carpet industry that exports around $208 million of flooring and carpets annually, according to the American Manufacturing Communities Collaborative.
"Our principal mission is to collect, preserve and interpret the material and cultural heritage of Northwest Georgia," Gramling said by phone.
The center's key focuses are the Civil War, Cherokee history and the development of textiles in the area, according to Gramling. The center has been open since 2008 and has various exhibits on display, including a temporary one centered around soldiers from the area who served in World War II and a permanent exhibit around bedspreads, among others, though the center is currently under renovation.
"The Southern textile economy, as it manifests itself here in our part of Northwest Georgia, literally is kind of the thread that binds a lot of different epics of our history really together," Gramling said.
The Bandy Center will be hosting its final lecture in the textile series on April 9. Kennesaw State University professor Randall Patton will speak about the evolution of the modern carpet industry at the Darrel C. Library at Dalton State College.
Contact Northwest Georgia reporter Ignacio Perez at ipe...@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6710.
Ignacio Perez covers North Georgia at the Chattanooga Times Free Press. He earned a degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. Before coming to Chattanooga, he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco.