Leola Pettway's "Rik-Rak" is somewhat unconventional. The zigzags, for instance, are not all pieced of the same color or type of material: some of it is solid; some of it is printed. The stripes disturb the accepted order still more, alternating bands of preprinted floral fabrics and geometric ones. The latter carry their own diagonal patterns, which play off the pieced zigzags. In all, this quilt owes more to Gee's Bend's practice of improvisation within familiar patterns than it does to the Freedom Quilting Bee’s commercial demands.
