by Quilt Alliance | Oct 5, 2014 | Uncategorized
October 5th was designated by the United Nations to be “World Teachers Day”. We’re shining our spotlight on quilt teachers–from nationally-known teachers to first-time teachers, and even one quilter who wishes she had just a little more time to teach. Are you a teacher? Have you ever taught someone how to quilt? Did someone teach you? “World Teachers Day” might be a great day to say thank you to your favorite teacher! Jean Wells Keenan: I started quilting when I was a young married mother and mother of two and I was teaching Home Economics and they decided that we should have boys in Home Ec. and so I was looking for projects that boys could do. I ran across some patchwork kind of things from England. What appealed to me was the accurate cutting and sewing and the geometric shapes. I thought they would appeal to the boys. They made floor cushions. At that time, quilting was not very popular–this was back in 1969 but I was real taken with putting fabrics together. I have been a fabric person since I was a little girl. I love to sew and so it just appealed to me. I kind of discovered quilting at that time and started teaching how to do it but didn’t have that background in my family or anything. It was just more or less something that I discovered on my own. [Q]uilting is–I have been very fortunate, it is like my life. I would do it as a hobby. I also do it as a business. I love to teach and see people learn because I have done the teaching and writing of the books. I am sharing ideas and that is really what I love the most about quilting–is what happens with the people and seeing people want to learn and seeing what they do with the fabric and the creativity that happens. That’s really what I love most about quilting. Lisa Ellis: Teaching is something that I love to do. I’m finding it a little bit challenging with my schedule. I still have kids at home so teaching is harder to do. The occasional lecture is a little bit easier for me right now. I love teaching and I have taught several different classes. I’m hoping that eventually when I’m an empty-nester teaching is something that I can really get back to. A local quilt shop invited me to teach and I taught for a year and I loved it, but I’m just finding that I really can’t commit right now because I need to be available to my kids at this stage. They are all teenagers now and I need to be home in the afternoons and be available. Teaching is something that I love and I’m passionate about and I look forward to the day when I can make the commitment to teach on a regular basis and maybe even start traveling. As to what I teach. I have a couple of different things. Some technique oriented things and then also I do a Praise Quilt workshop. I’ve done the Praise Quilt Workshop class a few times where I have women that want to learn more about making quilts that are an expression of faith. So we do the anatomy of what makes a Praise Quilt and then I teach techniques. But it is also an opportunity for women to explore how they would like to incorporate what they do into making pieces for their places of worship. I look forward to the day when I can really pursue that and do a lot more teaching. Kathyanne White: Understand what speaks to you and why, then learn how to express your own ideas in a way no other artist does. Learn to do original work. This comes up in my workshops a lot. I teach workshops and the workshops that I teach encourage all the participants to express their own voice. When you participate in one of my workshops, your work will look like your work, as you participate in the various exercises. I think that learning to develop your own work, learning to stretch your boundaries, all those types of things. Sarah Luther: Our quilting group was trying to encourage more people to come out and join us so we offered a free beginner’s class and I did the teaching on the quick quilt methods. I enjoyed that because it taught me to prepare ahead and to think about how to discuss the patterns as I was presenting it; sort of like I learned from TV. And I enjoyed it, but I know that I wouldn’t be a professional teacher. [W]e put it in the Trinity Valley newsletter and we announced it in different places, we put out flyers at different places that said ‘Free Beginning Quilting.’ And we had three or four that came a couple of times but couldn’t keep coming because it’s over about an eight to ten week period. We did about twenty blocks and tried to teach different things, aspects of quilting. The log cabin, it started out with the nine patch and worked up to doing one that was paper piecing and one that was crazy quilt block so I kind of went over a range and I had another lady who had done some appliqué in the group so she taught the class on appliqué. But we really enjoyed it and several of the ones that just came to quilt actually made blocks and put together their own sampler quilt. We all gained from it and enjoyed it… It made me feel important. I’ve never thought that I could. But I planned ahead. You can read more quilt stories on the Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories page on the Quilt Alliance website. Posted by Emma Parker Project Manager, Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories…
by Quilt Alliance | Oct 3, 2014 | On this Day in History Quilts series
On this day in 1895, the American novel The Red Badge of Courage, written by 24-year-old Stephen Crane, was published in book form. The Civil War tale from a soldier’s perspective first appeared as a syndicated newspaper series. Crane was the youngest of 14 children, born in 1871 and raised in New York and New Jersey. Crane self-published his first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Street, about a poor girl’s decline, based on a woman his lower-class New York neighborhood. J. B. Roberson of Cleburne Texas made this Family Tree Quilt in 1893. From this Quilt Index record: “The December 20th date suggests that J. B. Roberson made this quilt for his wife as a Christmas gift. At the bottom of the quilt he credits his brother-in-law J.W. Mills, who held the bulk of the quilt for him while he guided it under the needle of the treadle sewing machine. One of the quilt maker’s sons remembers his father as selling and demonstrating sewing machines, among other jobs.” The quilt was documented during the Texas Quilt Search Project and is included in the book Lone Stars: A Legacy of Texas Quilts, Vol. I, 1836-1936, by Karoline Patterson Bresenhan and Nancy O’Bryant Puentes (Austin: University of Texas Press,1986.) It was included in an exhibition by the same name at the Texas State Capitol Rotunda, in Austin, Texas April 19-21, 1986. View this quilt on The Quilt Index to find out! Read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view or click the “See full record” link to see a larger image and all the data entered about that quilt. Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-red-badge-of-courage-is-published Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
by Quilt Alliance | Sep 30, 2014 | On this Day in History Quilts series
On this day in 1935, John Royce Mathis was born in Gilmer, Texas to Clem and Mildred Mathis. The family moved to San Francisco when Johnny was a young boy his father, recognizing his son’s musical potential, bought him a piano for $25 and traded odd jobs for voice lessons. Mathis excelled at sports too—competing as a star athlete in track and field and basketball in high school. Mathis’s recording career highlights includes an unprecedented 480 continuous weeks on the Billboard Top Albums Chart for his Greatest Hits record, released in 1958. Donoene McKay of Gilmer, Texas machine pieced and hand quilted this Yellow Rose of Texas quilt in 1983, using more than 5,000 pieces to create the pictorial motif. This quilt was reviewed and documented during the Texas Sesquicentennial Quilt Association’s Phase II of the Texas Quilt Search, 1986-1989, and contributed to The Quilt Index by the Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. From this record: Quiltmaker states: I always wanted to do something in mosaic and did not know how. Had always done my own needlepoint designs and realized one day that each stitch could be used as a square. I worked out a needlepoint rose from [the Jackson & Perkins] catalog–then painted it in oils, then marked a grid. The Olfa cutter was new and gave me trouble to learn to use, but what a godsend for cutting out 5000+ little squares. I sewed on 4 machines with different colors thread, having filed the presser feet to one eighth in width. I made a mock-up with muslin background and began again with the green background. Both quilts were finished in one year.” View this quilt on The Quilt Index to find out! Read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view or click the “See full record” link to see a larger image and all the data entered about that quilt. Source: http://www.johnnymathis.com/bio2.php Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
by Quilt Alliance | Sep 29, 2014 | On this Day in History Quilts series
On this day in 1988, Stacy Allison of Portland, Oregon, became the first American woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the highest point on earth. Allison is now an author and motivational speaker. Jan Magee of Denver, Colorado machine pieced and embroidered and machine and hand quilted this 22” x 29” wall piece, titled “Spears, Globes, Carpets, and Climbers” in 2004. From this Quilt Index record: This quilt is one of 64 art quilts that make up the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum’s Rooted in Tradition Collection, which is on traveling exhibit throughout the USA through 2008. Featured in the book “Rooted in Tradition: Art Quilts from the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum.” … Donated to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum by the maker, Jan Magee of Denver, CO.f View this quilt on The Quilt Index to find out! Read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view or click the “See full record” link to see a larger image and all the data entered about that quilt. Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/american-woman-climbs-everest Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
by Quilt Alliance | Sep 12, 2014 | On this Day in History Quilts series
On this day in 1953, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, a photographer for the Washington Times-Herald, at St. Mary’s church in Newport, Rhode Island. Wedding guests numbered over 750 and another 3,000 onlookers waited outside the church. Kennedy was elected U.S. President seven years later, the youngest man to ever take this office. This Kaleidoscope quilt top was made around 1919 in Newport, Rhode Island. The owner discovered the quilt and others in an old sea chest in his family home, and documented in the Rhode Island Quilt Documentation Project in 1992. From this record: “Owner is unsure of who made this and other quilts found with it, but believes it to be one of three women: Pamela Albro-owner’s great grandmother, Fanny Albro Barker-owner’s grandmother, or Rebecca Barker Dennis-owner’s aunt.” View this quilt on The Quilt Index to find out! Read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view or click the “See full record” link to see a larger image and all the data entered about that quilt. Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/jfk-marries-jacqueline-bouvier Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
