Tonight is the seventh night of Hanukkah, and Christmas is only three days away–we’re right in the middle of a season of giving. Whether it’s new gadgets and gifts to friends, quilts for family, or a donation to an organization near and dear, there will be a whole lot of giving going on this week! Today’s Q.S.O.S. features 4 quiltmakers on giving. What do you plan on giving this year? Violette Denney, interviewed in Carollton, Georgia: In all I have made about 189 quilts. I do keep a log of my quilts and I probably have less than 100 still, so those others I’ve given away. So I’ve given lots of quilts away. And that doesn’t count the quilt tops that I’ve made, I did five for the DAR that were quilted by someone else and used as fund-raisers. We’ve made many, many for the children’s home, we’ve made them for Kosovo and troops and I did one for Merrill Gardens, the assisted Living Facility here in town. I did one for the Historical Society to be given to the city during the anniversary celebration and it’s hanging in City Hall [Carrollton, Georgia.] now. My daughter-in-law works for Home Depot and I did a quilt for her and it actually ended up in the Home Depot Museum. So, anyway I’ve done lots and given lots away, but I guess my favorite is giving them to the children. I gave 8 to hospice last year for the children patients at Heartland Hospice and made pillowcases with animal prints and all for them too. So I like to do things like that. Judy Whitson of Tuscaloosa, Alabama: I love to give. It is a sign that you really care for somebody when you give them a handmade item like a little baby quilt or a quilt for their bed or something, and it is more or less a memory quilt. I always put a signature block on there saying who it is for, the date, and who designed it and who made it, quilted. Judy Kriehn, at the International Quilt Festival in Houston said: I don’t have kids. I’m not married and I don’t have kids. All I have is fabric. [laughs.] I have three sewing machines and fabric. I had a lot of cousins who were having babies so I made baby quilts for them. I make a lot things that I give away and people are like, ‘How can you give that stuff away?’ Well because it’s personal even when it’s a baby quilt. It’s coming from my heart and I’d rather give it to somebody who is going to appreciate it than try to sell it and be unhappy no one wanted to buy it. And I just love the way Sue Stinner in Elkton, Maryland talks about her grandchildren: Most of the quilts I’ve made though, I’ve given away. But know that I’m building up a stash of grandkids along with a stash of fabric; I’ll probably be making more for family than I will for friends.  You can read more quilt stories on the Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories page on the Quilt Alliance site. Posted by Emma Parker Project Manager,  Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories…

Today’s Q.S.O.S. Spotlight is shining on a 2002 interview with Rosemary Zaugg, in Fort Worth, Texas. In her interview, Rosemary shared about the 30 year gap between her first quilt and her second, how she came to quilt-making (again), and her advice to new quilters. Read on for more words of wisdom from Rosemary: My first quilt was when I was 18 and right out of high school. When I was 15 or 16, I made a list of things that I was going to accomplish in my life and one of the things on there was ‘piece a quilt.’ And so I took a cardboard shoe box and took some cardboard templates, I first went to see my dad’s cousin who had tons of quilt tops that she had made all her life. People brought her scraps and people in the town had given her scraps to make quilt tops and they’d come and she would sell the quilt tops and she had hundreds of them. So I went to visit her and I picked out a pattern and she gave me her templates and I had cardboard templates and I cut out all these triangles with the scissors. The pattern was supposed to be “Hope of Hartford but I got the pinwheels turned around, half of them, so I called it “Hope of Rosemary.” And I got the quilt finished, my mother put it on the frame, and she had her friends come and quilt it. And I was going to learn to hand quilt and I pricked my finger and it bled on the quilt and my mother said, ‘Honey, you can serve the lemonade.’ So I never learned to hand quilt because I was serving the lemonade. So I checked off on the list that I had made my quilt and it was quilted. And that was in 1964, and I never did a quilt again until 1994. […] In 1992, I had a liver transplant and I could not go back to work as an accountant because I couldn’t–I wouldn’t have the stamina to take that many hours. I had done our daughters’ wedding–we had two daughters get married and a liver transplant in eight months and when that all was over with, I got bored. I couldn’t go back to work and I said, ‘I think I’ll piece a quilt.’ My husband said, ‘Well, why don’t you write a book?’ and I said, ‘No, I think I’ll piece a quilt.’ I got a quilt book and by the first time I had–by the first quilt I got done, I had three more cut out. And it was just my thing and I just got into it and I made thirty-two full-size or queen-size bed quilts. I’ve made over 180 quilts. I have paper-pieced 1500 blocks in wall hangings, jackets, and quilts and I’ve got a few unfinished projects […] Edie Jones (interviewer): What advice, in parting words, would you give to new quilters? Rosemary Zaugg: The first couple of years, I said, ‘There are quilters who talk about it and quilters who do it.’ I said, ‘Get out there and do it. Don’t just go to meetings and learn about it. Don’t go to classes and never make a quilt. Get out there and do it.’ And the vender booth Pastime Fabrics has this display and she’s got these quilter’s quotes out there, and as I walked past it yesterday, I pointed to the one and I said, ‘It says, She who dies with the most fabric wins.’ I said, ‘That’s not really true. She who dies with the most fabric is still dead, so get out there and use the fabric, make the quilts, don’t just collect the fabric.’ You can read more quilt stories on the Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories page on the Quilt Alliance site. Posted by Emma Parker Project Manager,  Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories…

Here in the US, we’ve just finished the Thanksgiving holiday, a time to celebrate, gather, remember and give thanks for our families. But now that that holiday is finished, the malls and commercials have started pushing one thing: gifts for Christmas! Today’s Q.S.O.S. spotlight features an excerpt from an interview with Bonnie Gallagher as she talks about making gifts for her family: Bonnie Gallagher: I’m doing the family Christmas project this year is they are holiday fabrics actually and they are table runners and table toppers for everyone’s dining room tables for the holidays with the exception of one for my nephew, Misha, and his wife-to-be, Katie I asked them to be really specific with me about what they would like in the way of quilting because I said, ‘After all your Aunt Bonnie quilts and that’s what everybody gets for Christmas.’ [both laugh.] Bless his heart, two years ago Misha asked me, he said, ‘Well Aunt Bonnie, now that I’ve graduated from college and I have my own apartment and I’m fully grown. Does that mean I get to graduate to the family quilt project list?’ I just couldn’t believe it. I could have just hugged him because first of all he was a guy and second of all he was a guy in his 20’s and so it was kind of like graduating to the adult table at Thanksgiving when you’re a little kid. [both laugh.] I said, ‘You bet.’ I said, ‘Well, did you have anything specific in mind?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I love having friends over for dinner and I really would like to have one of your table toppers and those wonderful napkins that you make.’ I said, ‘Well, I have one more question.’ He said, ‘Blue and green.’ [both laugh.] He knew what that next question was. This year, bless his heart, I asked he and Katie here not soon enough practically. I said, ‘Did they have any specific thing in mind this year?’ And they both said, “Yep, you have one over here on your quilt rack that we both just love.’ And I said, ‘Ah oh, so do you remember which one it was?’ By golly, they went right to it and it was a Bargello quilt that I’d made to commemorate my mother’s Chinese dinners over the years and they just loved it. Well, I’ll tell you, Bargello, some of these pieces are like 7/8 inches wide and they are just itty-bitty things, but it’s a technique that I love to do. It is just that I kind of recalled that one quilt I did for Mom took me about two months and here I’m asking them the first of November what it is they want for Christmas this year. I’m down to the borders now, hallelujah. They may not have it quilted in time for Christmas, but they will be able to see the design. That’s kind of fun. Carolyn Kolzow (interviewer): What a treasure.   BG: Yeah, well I hope they like it. [laughs.] I said, ‘Oh cripes, you guys are going for the art quilts.’ I said, ‘You do know those take a little longer than the traditional ones.’ Anyway, that is okay. It gives me a warm heart that they’re thrilled with it. CK: I suppose that is what you find most pleasing about quilts too. BG: I do. It’s like you think of whomever you’re making them for with great love every stitch of the way. I mean you have that person in mind and it’s just wonderful and they know it when they get it that quilt was especially made for them. It does give me great joy. I did for this year’s family reunion that Jim and I host here at the house in Sandy for all my Lippincott, my father’s family, come and I’m fortunate enough to have still five aunts and uncles that are living on that side, which thankfully makes me feel not quite so much like an orphan with both of my parents gone now. Every year for the family reunion I do a big quilt, a napping size I guess I call it. The napping blanket and I only let my aunts and uncles put their name into the hat and I pull a name or have the youngest person at the reunion pull a name and that quilt goes home with that aunt or uncle. My Uncle Boyd won the last one and my Aunt Sharon won before then and my Aunt Rhodie bless her heart is 96 years old, so she called me about March and she said, ‘Bonnie this is your Aunt Rhodie. Have you started that family reunion quilt yet?’ And I said, ‘Well no, I have clear till August.’ Anyway she said, ‘Well, I’m kind of figuring this out. I think my odds are improving.’ Because if they won before they are not eligible at the next one. She said, ‘So your Aunt Becky usually only comes to every other reunion.’ She said, ‘Your Uncle Boyd already won and your Aunt Sharon already won.’ So she figures, ‘I’m down to one in three now and I really want to win that quilt before I die.’ And I thought, ‘Oh my God. How am I going to do this?’ I just shifted into high gear and I figured the only way I was going to do it was to make a quilt for each and every one of them for this year’s reunion. I did. I made a total of six of them each specifically for that…