In Their Own Words: Writing Quilt History a Little at a Time
December, 2002
In Their Own Words: Writing Quilt History a Little at a Time
By Karen Musgrave
Published in Quilter's Newsletter Magazine
We can learn many things about a quilt by viewing it. Simply looking at it, though, does not afford us the whole story. Listening to the maker does. Capturing the quiltmaker's own words saves that story for the future.
Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories (Q.S.O.S.) intends to save these stories. Q.S.O.S. is a project of The Alliance for American Quilts in partnership with the Regional Center for the Quilt at the Center for American Material Culture Studies, University of Delaware. The project was designed to be simple, inexpensive and inclusive. The format can be easily adopted by other organizations and individuals eager to document the personal stories of quiltmakers in their communities. The goal is to create, through recorded interviews, a broadly accessible body of information concerning quiltmaking and make it available through the Internet at www.allianceforamericanquilts.org/qsos/. The website also offers an extensive manual on how to conduct a Q.S.O.S. project of one's own, a newsletter and a place to ask questions. All of this work is done by volunteers. The Alliance for American Quilts is a nonprofit organization that works nationally to preserve, document and share quilts and quilt history.
Q.S.O.S. has been developed with three working concepts in mind: focus interviews, touchstone object and accessibility. Each interview runs approximately forty-five minutes. The quiltmaker interviewed is asked to bring a "touchstone object" that she/he considers significant in her/his own quiltmaking. The interview unfolds from observations and questions about the touchstone object, which provides a consistent point of reference. Interview equipment and techniques are easily acquired and used with minimum training.
To structure the interviews, Q.S.O.S. has developed a set of "quadrant questions." The purpose of these questions is to help structure the interviews and to provide for comparison and analysis. Questions and conversation can flow freely between the quadrant topics. While there can be overlap and repetition of material, this maintains the informality of the interviews.
Each of us chooses the stories we weave into our families and our communities by how we do whatever we do. The interviews show the wealth and breadth of quiltmakers. They include quiltmakers of every variety from those who simply dabble to those who are professionals. There are currently more than 90 interviews from nine different projects from around the United States with more being added all the time. Here is just a small sampling of what you will find when you visit the interviews.
What is your first memory of a quilt?
Edna Kotrola (Delaware Interview #DE-04) shares, "…my grandmother did the Sunbonnet Sue. And I always used that quilt when I went over to her house. And it's such a simple pattern, you know. And I remember I used to trace and think that I could draw it, which I couldn't but…When I teach we always do a Sunbonnet Sue in a sampler that everybody makes."
Tell me if you have ever used quilting to get through a difficult time.
Beatrice Schmidtzinsky (Texas Interview #TX776121-001) expressed, "Well it [quilting] was probably my savior when my husband was so ill. That would take me away from thinking about what was happening. How am I going to handle this? It would give me some peace every once in a while, just to get away from the illness." While Ricky Tims (International Quilt Festival Interview #80) said, "…I called it "The Beat Goes On" obviously because after the surgery and I woke up and came through all of that, 'my heart is still beating.'"
How does quilting impact your family?
"I think they appreciate it. But I'll be real honest with you. I think at times they may have just a tad resentment. 'Oh there she goes quilting again. Don't bother Mom. She's quilting again. Leave Mom alone. She's quilting again.' I do have to balance that. I have to be careful and balance my time with them so I try real hard not to be a fruitcake over it but it's hard not to. But they know my passion. They know they are well taken care of if something happens to me. They will be set in quilts and I hope they appreciate all the work that I've done. But I think they appreciate it. I think at times they're proud," replied Kay Butler (Delaware Interview #DE-11)
Are there other quilters in your family?
"When I grew up those were the hard times and any quilts that my mother had in that home were quilts to keep us warm. They were mostly old quilts that she could recover. And then she would tie them. So as for fine stitches, she didn't do that. She made quilts to keep us warm. So the first top that I ever made I still have not finished it. I don't know why I don't thro it away, because I didn't want anybody to know that was my work…But her quilts, I know, that was in the area of feed sacks. She would dye them, and she would made her own dye out of the hulls of walnut. She would gather the walnut hulls and boil them. And that would bring out a greenish brown. And she'd piece these feed sacks together," said Ruth Morris (Delaware Interview #DE-06).
Why is quilting important to your life?
Jonathan Shannon (International Quilt Festival Interview #40) remarked, "I am very interested in the emotional and historical response to textile because I feel that textile represents one of the most basic forces, artistic forces and spiritual forces in humankind. As you examine every, every culture starting with ours and moving back through prehistory, textile has always played a very important ceremonial role and I wanted to see how could I use that power of textile on its own with a few pictorial references as possible, how to just work with, just the power of cloth…Everywhere I go we share a language and that language is quiltmaking."
Is there anything you would like to add?
Advice from Madge Ziegler (Delaware Interview #DE-12), "I hope if you've learned one thing from interviewing me and all these people is that you never ask someone how long it took them to make a quilt. That to me is the stupidest question anyone could ask a quiltmaker, 'How long did this take you?' I like to say fifty-three years because I was born a quiltmaker."
Like creating a patchwork quilt from scraps of fabric, Q.S.O.S. is gathering the stories of quiltmakers. The Alliance for American Quilts knows the power of giving and preserving the voices of quiltmakers. Quilts matter. Quiltmakers matter.
The Alliance for American Quilts can be reached at P.O. Box 6251, Louisville, Kentucky 40206 or online at http://www.allianceforamericanquilts.org/qsos/.
Karen Musgrave is a professional art quilter, quilt teacher, speaker, writer and a volunteer for The Alliance for American Quilts. She wrote the Q.S.O.S. manual.
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