A designer's fabric masterpieces lovingly fill this historic home
by Roberta Messner
While most girls busied themselves with dolls and arranged the furniture in their dollhouse, Jill Kemp found herself fascinated with interior design on a higher level. It was the fabrics of the bedspreads and curtains that caught her fancy. She loved the feel of fabrics so much, in fact, that at only 5 years of age, under the tutelage of her Aunt Hazel, she began hooking rugs. “My dad would take my sister and me to her house after church on Sundays,” Jill recalls. “She would let us hook on her rugs. She probably ripped out everything we did because we were such little kids and she was a perfectionist. But that’s how I learned. It’s fun, and still today, I love working with wool.”
The keeping room is a wonderful mix of old and new. The rack holding homespun is richly evocative of times past.”
Carrying On A Tradition
Jill comes from a long line of artists. Her grandmother liked to paint. Her grandfather and great uncle were furniture makers. Her mother knitted. And her great aunt adored sewing. (Not to mention dear Aunt Hazel.) Carrying on that fine tradition today, Jill designs quilting fabrics for Red Rooster Fabrics. She got her start in quilting in 1974 while an art major in college. “I always wanted to have quilts, but I couldn’t afford to buy them,” she says. Her fondness for scraps of fabrics sewn together to make a beautiful whole has never waned. “I love fabrics, I love colors and I love the patterns in the fabrics,” she explains.
There’s an ancient saying that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. But that wasn’t true in Jill’s case. She couldn’t find anyone to teach her how to quilt, so she took matters into her own hands and taught herself. “There wasn’t a lot of quilting out there at the time,” she says. That was, after all, two years before America’s bicentennial, when quilts and quilting enjoyed a wide resurgence.
Today, Jill’s exquisite handmade creations are displayed and used throughout the Westfield Center, Ohio, saltbox she shares with her husband, Steve.  Quilts adorn every conceivable surface including beds, the backs of sofas and the numerous quilt racks that Steve makes in the old tradition.
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A cozy nook in the Kemps’ bedroom is perfect for snuggling with a good book or their dog, Rebecca. Jill made all the quilts in the background.
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Jill made the log cabin motif quilt in the keeping room and actually wove the fabric for the curtains. She also designed all of the quilts over the sofa; Steve made the quilt rack.
