In the beginning women working at home created every chenille bedspread totally by hand. At a time when the vast majority of Murray County families depended upon farming for their livelihood, the extra income they earned by making bedspreads enabled them to buy essentials for the family.

Catherine Evans, a Whitfield County teenager, in 1895 determined to copy a family heirloom bedcover that was called candlewick. She soon learned that the technique was no longer used and none of the people she contacted remembered how to do such work. She decided to try to figure out the process for herself.

First she had to create a pattern and stamp it on a piece of sheeting.

She discovered that a stitch could be locked into the sheeting fabric to create a short length or loop for trimming to create a soft pile. She learned to thread a very big needle with thick yarn, pull the yarn through the fabric, then use scissors to cut the yarn between two stitches. She called the trimmed loop a turf. . Each cut thread was then teased and fluffed to make it stand up, contributing its color to the overall pattern of the spread. After the turfing was finished, the spread was hung on a clothesline to fluff the turf.

She made a spread to give as a wedding gift. A lady who saw the unusual gift asked Miss Evans to make one to sell her. Then others wanted to buy her unique hand-turfed bedspreads. This was the beginning of whole new industry that would greatly impact all of North Georgia for decades.

The demand for hand-turfted bedspreads quickly became far greater than she could satisfy. To satisfy this increased demand, a network evolved. Those needing bedspreads to fill orders would stamp the pattern on sheeting material, then haulers would take the stamped spreads, along with appropriate huge needles and various colors of thread required, to area households where the females would do the turfing. (The word "tufting" did not come into common use until later.)

Haulers would return in about a week to pick up the turfed spread and leave new ones to be turfed.

Once the spreads were back at a central point, they were washed and packaged for shipment to fill orders from stores and catalog houses.

Payment to turf a bedspread typically was between twenty-five and fifty cents, depending on the perceived amount of turfing a pattern might require. Even so, this endeavor enriched some household by as much as a dollar a week, money that the family otherwise would not have had.

In their Spring-Summer 1935 catalog, Sears Roebuck offered three hand-tufted spreads, "Handmade by the southern mountain women," priced at $1.59; $1.95; and $2.49 each. They also offered "Hand-Tufted candlewick cloth," 39 inches wide, that they recommended for making "matching draperies, dresser scarf, chair covers." Pictures of these products can be seen below.

This hand-turfing cottage industry continued from around 1920 until the late 1940s, when customized Singer sewing machines replaced the hand turfing.

Mrs. Catherine Evans Whitener, though not of Murray County, probably had the greatest impact upon Murray County of any Georgian–ever. Georgia Women of Achievement recognized the work of this remarkable woman in 2001.

About the Following Collections:

A privately owned collection in Murray County contains these early chenille spreads. Some were hand-turfed, others were made with the very earliest chenille machines. Click on any picture to see an enlargement.