Please join us on June 11th at 2 pm Eastern for a very special free Textile Talk. We’ll be talking about the re-launch of our QSOS project, and sharing more information about how you can help! Read on to learn a little more about the project re-launch, and why we believe so much in the importance of this project.

What is QSOS? QSOS stands for Quilters’ Save Our Stories. Those four words say it all: it’s a project by and for quilters, dedicated to preserving and saving the history, practices, traditions, and stories of our quiltmaking community. QSOS is an oral history project in which one quiltmaker is interviewed about their quiltmaking life—how they came to quilting, how they practice it, what they love (and what challenges them), and what quilting means to their life and the broader world. These interviews are available online and are archived with our partners at the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center and the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky. The project is free and open to anyone who wants to participate. QSOS is a grassroots, community-driven project. Quilters across the country—and the world—have volunteered to record interviews with fellow quiltmakers. These include stories from people like David White, a long-distance trucker who sets up his sewing machine in the cab of his truck; Frances McDonald Boyd, who balanced quilting with a decades-long career in education; and Alice Robinson, who shares a quilt she made during her chemotherapy and recovery from breast cancer. QSOS launched in 1999. Since then, we’ve collected more than 1,200 oral histories. A few years ago, we paused active interviewing to reflect and retool the project to make it more user-friendly, enhance digital accessibility, and streamline the interview process for the digital age. Now, we’re bringing QSOS back, and we invite you to join us for a new era of this important project.

What’s new? A simpler, more accessible interview processWe’ve updated the QSOS project for the digital age. Instead of mailing paper transcripts and cassette tapes back and forth and transcribing each interview manually, interviews can now be recorded digitally, and submitted online. Updated interview questions and guidanceThe interview topics and question bank have been revised to reflect the current quilting world. New interview guidance helps interviewers and participants explore what quiltmaking looks like today, including the tools people use, the issues they care about, and how quilting fits into their lives in the 21st century. A new way to listen and browseQSOS interviews are now easier to search and use: each new interview will have an interview index that makes the interview easier to navigate. The new system makes it simpler, whether you’re doing research in quilt history, looking for a new teacher to visit your guild, or just listening to an interview with a friend. Improved support and resources We’ve refreshed the training materials for interviewers, interviewees, and quilt groups. The updated guides are clearer and more practical, making it easier to participate—whether you’re recording a story, helping someone else do it, or organizing a guild project.