Each year the Sycamore Stitchers host an annual quilt show featuring a variety of eye-catching and intricate quilts of all shapes and sizes. Among the quilts on display during the show this week is a uniquely crafted quilt that has garnered both national and international accolades.
Elizabethton native Flora Joy will be displaying her quilt titled “Frame of Mind” that was crafted from a special quilting method she developed called “Trispective.”
What you see when you look at “Frame of Mind” will depend on where you are standing. If you look at the quilt straight on it shows a picture of actress and television host Oprah Winfrey. But, if you step a little to your left the quilt will then show a picture of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Taking a few steps to your right will give you a view of noted humanitarian Mother Teresa.
The story behind how she was inspired to make this special quilting style is something that Joy shares with a laugh.
“I was driving home from Johnson City to my home in Elizabethton and I got stopped at a long red light,” she said. “Do you know the billboards that had the pieces that rotate to show different ads? It was one of those, and I said I need to do that in a quilt.”
Once the idea was born there was no stopping it.
“It just popped in my brain that day,” Joy said. “When I would go to sleep at night it just wouldn’t let go.”
There was some trial and error with different methods before Joy landed on the right way to create the visual effect in fabric.
“It takes a computer to do it,” Joy said. “It’s so much fun. It’s a way to do a quilt that is so different from other quilts.”
To complete the effect, Joy said the quilter needs to take their three images they want to use and combine them in a specific way into a single digital image, which is then printed onto the fabric.
Joy said she chose the photographs of Kennedy, Winfrey and Mother Teresa for the people to be featured in her first Trispective quilt for a special reason.
“I wanted them to be women,” Joy said. “I wanted them to be famous, but famous for a good reason.”

The quilt was finished in 2014 and the Joy began taking it to quilt shows around the country.
“The first time I had this quilt in a show, the AQS, that’s the American Quilting Society, approached me and said ‘Let’s do a book on this quilt’ and I said ‘Yes, let’s do it,” Joy said.
In the book, titled Trispective – The 3-N-1 Quilt, Joy details exactly how other quilters can use her method to make their own trispective quilts.
“A lot of people who do this will use their mother, themselves and their daughter,” Joy said. “Or they will use three siblings or maybe a grandfather, father and son.”
Joy herself has now down other trispective quilts with a variety of different images and subjects, which have been included in her book, which is available through the American Quilting Society, online at www.amazon.com, and it is also available at some local quilting stores.

Joining the “Frame of Mind” quilt will be many other varied quilts in many different patterns, sizes and styles.
Categories of quilts displayed include: Hand Quilted Bed Quilts, Machine Quilted Bed Quilts, Baby Quilts, Long Arm Quilted Bed Quilts, Juvenile/Lap Quilts, Holiday Wall Hangings, Wall Hangings, Large Wall Hanging, Small/Miniature Wall Hangings, the Sycamore Stitchers Challenge, and Antique Quilts. The Antique Quilts will be displayed on a bed and turned frequently for viewing.
The Sycamore Stitchers Quilting Group will also be exhibiting their completed challenge quilts. This year our challenge is titled, “Here We Go-A-Caroling,” which should provide some interesting entries.
Gloves will be provided so visitors can touch and examine the quilts. You are also encouraged to photograph any or all of the quilts. Visitors will be able to vote for their favorite in each category except antiques.
The show is open to the public and free of charge and is sponsored by the Carter County UT Extension Service and Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park.
For additional information, contact Carolyn Buckles, Show Co-Chair at 423-474-2682 or Jeanie Johnson, Show Co-Chair at 423-542-6173 or Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park at 543-5808. The quilt show can be viewed from 9 am – 4 pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and from 1 pm – 4:00 pm on Sunday.