Quilts for the holidays.

by | Dec 26, 2013 | Fundraising, QSOS

I’m enjoying some quiet, and not-so-quiet-: ), family time this season. I hope you are too. The subject of the holidays comes up fairly regularly in our Quilters’ S.O.S. – Save Our Stories (Q.S.O.S.) interviews and I thought it would be fun to share images and excerpts from a few of my favorites with you. Please write in with your own favorites from the Q.S.O.S. collection. We’d love to hear from you! Kay Butler, interviewed by Heather Gibson in Dover, Delaware on December 16, 2000 for the Delaware Q.S.O.S. sub-project.

Heather Gibson: Okay, tell me about the quilt you brought today. Kay Butler: Okay, this is a Christmas Mystery Quilt. We had a Mystery Quilt planned to do in our guild. There were four girls in the group. We were to select the fabric that we wanted, place it in a brown bag, and then pass it on to the next person in the group. And the next person would do a little bit more work, and it’s sort of like a “round robin” idea. And so I started this endeavor with a visit to a quilt shop here in Dover called Rose Valley Quilt Shop. I bought all of my fabrics there, in the Amish Shop, from a very dear friend, Rachel Hershberger. And I had in my head that I wanted a Christmas design. Normally I’m a real purple-lover, a real purple fan. But I thought, ‘I’m going to break from tradition here. I’m going to force myself to think in a different color realm here.’ And I chose what you see here on the end is called the “zinger” fabric. A lot of the quilters will buy a zinger fabric, and they will pull from that zinger fabric the various colors that are in there, like the reds and the greens and the golds that you see. So I bought the fabric. And in the brown bag we also include a journal. Each lady includes a journal, and they write the story of their lives in the journal. And what’s taking place in their lives, if they’re having difficulty with that step of the project that they’ve been doing. And that also documents the quilt and tells a little bit more about the quilt. It was interesting. Liz Joe interviewed by Herb Morehead in Houston, Texas on November 6, 2011 for the International Quilt Festival Q.S.O.S. sub-project. Liz Joe (LJ): The quilt I brought to show today is called “Wise Men Still Seek Him”. I made it to enter into a contest but it was an art festival that was sponsored by our church with a Christmas theme. The name of the show was ‘The Manger, the Magi, and the Majesty of Christ’. Every piece of artwork that was entered had to fit one of those themes and I chose the magi, the wise men. I should say, this was an art show, not a quilt show. This is the fourth year in a row I’ve entered something. It’s always been the only quilt in the show. Becky Goldsmith interviewed by Jana Hawley in Houston, Texas on October 23, 1999 for the International Quilt Festival Q.S.O.S. sub-project. Becky Goldsmith (BG): This is a quilt that was designed to be published in a book that my partner and I wrote for That Patchwork Place. I made this quilt and it ended up being on the cover of the book. Jana Hawley (JH): Oh my God. That’s impressive. Have you made lots of quilts? BG: Yes I have. I started quilting in–I can’t remember the year–probably in 1986 when my youngest child was about– no, it would be 1985, because he was not quite a year old. We had moved. My husband had just gotten out of graduate school and we were poverty stricken. [laughs.] And we got bunk beds for the boys because Jeff kept trying to climb out of his crib. I thought he was going to kill himself. We bought these used bunk beds and I couldn’t go out and afford to just buy the whole matching sheet sets for the bunk beds, so what I did was–I thought to myself, ‘Well I’ll make quilts for these beds.’ That morning in the paper there was printed an article that said, ‘If you want to make a quilt, make it from scraps.’ [laughs.] So that’s what I did. I didn’t research this. I didn’t think it through. I just took it as a message on high to make these quilts. [laughing.] I used up all of the scraps I had ever accumulated from garment making because I had sewn and made garments through the years. My husband was so sweet. He helped me with the cardboard template because it said to make the templates out of cardboard. I made these really long, skinny Drunkard’s Path quilts because I thought it would be easier to use on a bunk bed. They were non-functional. It’s a bad plan for a bunk bed. Quilts have a drop on the side for a reason. I didn’t know that then. [laughing.] After that, my mom got a quilt book and I borrowed it from her then I took a class. From then on, it was much easier. Resna Ximines Hammer interviewed by Evelyn Salinger in Washington, D.C. on September 27, 2005 for the Daughters of Dorcas Q.S.O.S. sub-project. Evelyn Salinger (ES): Good. Nice of you to come today with your things to show. Let’s start out first with your telling me what you have made here. Resna Hammer (RH): These are two–One of the things that I am actually very passionate about is Jewish ceremonial kinds of cloths. And this is called a Challah cover and it’s used to cover bread on the Friday night dinner. This particular one also I tried to incorporate all of the holidays that would come in the certain period of time. Here this is Hanukkah, this is the symbol for Hanukkah, this is Purim, which is another one, and the pomegranates are for the High Holy Days. ES: Do you actually use this on Friday nights yourself? RH: We actually use it on Friday nights. ES: Every Friday night or just on the holiday time? RH: Just on the holiday. I have another one for Friday. I believe that the table should be beautiful. And normally what your traditional Challah covers are usually silk and they are painted on and I thought what I wanted to do and what I’ve been doing, a wonderful quilted ones that I just think enhance the day and the ceremony. This also has incorporated in it the seven species, which is in the Bible and that are things that are all incorporated with Shabbes or to do with the Sabbath. What I’ve written here in Hebrew is, it’s like, ‘For all the Miracles that You Perform for Us,’ and ‘We Thank You.’ I wanted it every Friday night to be able to see that. If you share the Quilt Alliance’s belief that all quilts and quiltmakers deserve a spot in history, please make a contribution today to add the financial fuel we need to continue and grow. You can make a secure gift online via credit card or Paypal or download our mail-in donation form here.  Every dollar donated through December 31, 2013 will be matched by an anonymous foundation, up to $15,000. If your are a member of this Alliance, if you have attended one of our events, if you believe in what we are doing, please make a contribution. Any amount makes a difference. With gratitude and love, Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…

What Does a Nonprofit Need Most?

by | Dec 20, 2013 | Fundraising

Yesterday, the Quilt Alliance published it’s Video Annual Report for 2013 (watch below). I love working on this project every year because I get to see not only how much we’ve accomplished and where we’ve been, but especially who we are. This Alliance includes quiltmakers, quilt owners and collectors, quilt historians, quilt shop owners and staff, museum and historical society folk, quilt industry representatives, archivists, teachers, lecturers, oral history buffs (to name a few), and our love of quilts and commitment to quiltmakers brings us together. Leading off our video annual report is the voice of longtime Alliance member Michelle Flamer, a quiltmaker and an attorney from Philadelphia. In the video, Michelle reads the artist’s statement for her TWENTY contest quilt, titled “Blest Be the Threads that Bind.” Whether we are old, young, black, white, “plain,” “English,” rich, poor, or quilt traditional or modern, we are all quilters united by that desire to create something wonderful from a lifeless pile of fabric! Blest Be the Threads that Bind celebrates Quilt Alliance’s twenty years of service to the American quilting community, a community that transcends time and endures even now in the 21st Century. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDA8EZ7feS0 Our members and the people we document through Quilters’ S.O.S. – Save Our Stories (Q.S.O.S.) and Go Tell It at the Quilt Show! interviews, and our partners and contributors with whom we work on the Quilt Index project, come from every corner of the quilt community. That diversity is what every nonprofit needs most. It is our mission to document, preserve and share the full spectrum of what has and is happening in the quilt community today, and having members and supporters with unique perspectives in this community and different gifts to share, fuels our mission. This year, we started the year by documenting quiltmakers at the Modern Quilt Guild’s first “QuiltCon” in Austin, Texas and finished the year at the 39th annual (!) Houston International Quilt Festival, documenting exhibiting quiltmakers and sharing our mission with attendees. Thanks to the leadership of both of these shows for supporting our mission!  Our staff and board members also made presentations and collected interviews at guilds and quilting events all over the United States, including our own Not Fade Away Conference in Herndon, Virginia in July and our Quilters Take Manhattan event in September. We end our 20th anniversary year feeling energized by this Alliance of passionate members, volunteers, partners and colleagues, and we ask for your help raise the necessary funds to continue our work, to continue to document, preserve and share the history of our community. Please make a contribution today to add the financial fuel we need to continue and grow. You can make a secure gift online via credit card or Paypal or download our mail-in donation form here.  Every dollar donated through December 31, 2013 will be matched by an anonymous foundation, up to $15,000. If your are a member of this Alliance, if you have attended one of our events, if you believe in what we are doing, please make a contribution. Any amount makes a difference. With gratitude and love, Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…

Quilt Alliance Donations Matched Dollar-for-Dollar Until Year’s End!

Quilt Alliance Donations Matched Dollar-for-Dollar Until Year’s End!

by | Dec 12, 2012 | Fundraising

Did you know that there are more than 30 million quilters across the globe?  It’s true! Every day, in small towns and big cities, using tools as simple and time-honored as a needle and thread or as complex as latest computerized sewing machine, quilters all over the world are sewing quilts for the joy of the process and with the hope that the patchwork they create today might someday be numbered among the treasured antique quilts of tomorrow.  As quiltmakers, we realize that while future generations may remember us only faintly, if at all, our quilts will powerfully tell our stories. We at the Quilt Alliance take the hopes and dreams of quiltmakers very seriously, making it our mission to document, preserve, and share the heritage of quilting by collecting the rich stories of quilts and their makers from every era. To that end, the Quilt Alliance has some very exciting news for quilters and those interested in the art, history, creation, collection, and documentation of quilts!  Thanks to the generosity of an extraordinary anonymous foundation, all contributions made to the nonprofit Quilt Alliance between now and the stroke of midnight on January 1, 2013, will be matched up to $10,000. That’s right, ALL donations made to Quilt Alliance from now until year-end will be matched dollar-for-dollar until we reach this $10,000 goal. Here’s the best news for contributors like you: as a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, all of the donated financial support to the Quilt Alliance is tax deductible!  That means that anything you donate during the last few weeks of 2012 can be deducted as a charity contribution when you file your taxes during the next few months! Of course, we would love for quilters and  quilt lovers to donate a small fortune to help us reach our $10,000 goal but we’re aware that even our most enthusiastic supporters may not be able to make big donations.  That’s why this is such a special opportunity! Between now and year’s end, every donation of every size, does double-duty, going twice as far so that the Quilt Alliance may continue its very important work, linking the worlds of patchwork, scholarship, and public interest. Please consider helping us in any way you can within the next couple of weeks — $5.00, $15.00, $25.00 or more!  As we head toward our target, anything you contribute will be doubly appreciated and every gesture of generosity will go twice as in helping the Quilt Alliance celebrate the history of quilting and insuring that quilts past, present, and future will be documented and preserved for the generations of tomorrow. You can support Quilt Alliance using online forms or by printing and mailing our downloadable forms that are available by visiting:www.QuiltAlliance.org/support/donate.php.    Time is running out for you to essentially double your contribution and help to support the Quilt Alliance with a matching donation from our anonymous donor.  Please log into our website and help us continue our important work, today! Money Photo Credit: …