ISU first lady Kathy Geoffroy is using her first holiday season at the Knoll to share her hobby with the ISU community.

Geoffroy and several volunteers spent Tuesday hanging quilts on the walls and draping fir garlands over doorways of the president’s home to decorate for the holidays. Although most of the quilts date from 1860 to 1910, a more modern one will also be on display — a quilt Geoffroy made will hang above the staircase landing.

“It’s nice to see the quilts reflect [the Geoffroys’] personal involvement,” said Lynette Pohlman, director of University Museums.

Geoffroy said she began quilting about five years ago when she moved to Maryland — and into a house that was within walking distance of a fabric store that gave quilting lessons.

“My sister had been doing it and I always admired the things she made,” Geoffroy said.

The idea came from a photograph.

Pohlman said she was in ISU President Gregory Geoffroy’s office with several photos. One had a quilt in the background.

“He said, ‘Kathy likes quilts. Do you have quilts?’ ” Pohlman said. “I said we had lots and somehow we decided that would be a fun thing to display.”

Volunteers began choosing quilts about two months ago, said Rachel Hampton, information and collections manager for University Museums.

Geoffroy said she looked for quilts with stars and snowflakes in the patterns or colors with red, green and white.

It’s the first time she has been involved with the holiday preparations at the Knoll. Last year, she was still living in Maryland when the house was decorated.

“When I came back everything had been done,” Geoffroy said. “It’s amazing what can be done in such a short period of time with lots of helpers.”

Hampton said the patterns in the “Lone Star” quilt — an enormous ivory blanket entirely occupied by a multi-colored, eight-point star — were sent to STICKS, a Des Moines-based woodworker, for handmade ornaments.

Carol Grant of Ames has volunteered to decorate the Knoll for the holidays every year since Martin Jischke became president in 1991. Her daughter, Sarah Grant-Hutchison, made the ornaments for the tree.

Grant said she’s never seen any decorations appear every year at the Knoll, but she said the decorations tend to be “really natural.”

“We’re using the natural products, like the greens and the more traditional things, because the house is very traditional,” she said.

“It’s 101 years old, so you see the basic stuff pretty much stays the same.”

The first floor of the Knoll will be open to the public from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday for part of the Victorian Holidays celebration.