This month, we have a little gift for you: seven hand-picked quilt stories from our projects, each one about the different ways we give quilts — and what quilts give us! As Tomme Fent says in her 2002 QSOS interview, I do think quilters are very generous. And quilters are so friendly. It’s like having a family connection the world over. You can go anywhere and find quilters, and just immediately strike up a conversation and have something to talk about. One thing I think is so great about quilting is what it’s done for me, and it’s also done for other quilters… Quilting is the most incredible creative expression. It’s a way of expressing grief, or joy, or love. You can just be as wild as you want or as conservative as you want. You can try something that’s totally outside your personality, outside the box. Or you can do something that’s just calming and relaxing. Tomme’s thoughts resonate with me as I think about what it means to give someone a quilt you’ve made. It’s not only the gift of a beautiful handmade object, but also the gift of time, attention, and memory. But Tomme’s quote also got me thinking about also what a gift it is to be among quilters. A diverse, resourceful, clever and–most definitely: generous!–group. Thank you for being so generous with your support and your stories this year. We can’t wait to keep celebrating quilts with you all again in 2022! Meg Cox https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug9q_QpCpn4 Our first Giving Quilt story comes from Meg Cox, who tells us about the memory quilt she made for her granddaughter, Lucy. Jeanette Farmer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGV0360FzX4 In this Go Tell It! interview, Jeanette Farmer talks about a quilt she’s made for a local child experiencing homelessness. Making charity quilts to give to those in need is a perfect example of the generosity of quilters. Judy Whitson, QSOS interview Betty Jean Weaver, interviewer: Another question is how have you given quilts as gifts? Judy Whitson: Oh yes, 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. Starla Phelps https://youtu.be/5m9k_PE4-IM Starla Phelps made this quilt for her husband — and it was the very first quilt she EVER made! Eliza Hardy Jones https://youtu.be/jw_ZCYCmXhc?t=186 In season 3, episode 3, of our Running Stitch podcast, Janneken Smucker talks to musician and artist Eliza Hardy Jones about her quilts that interpret songs. They begin by talking about how Eliza began quilting: in the hopes of making gifts for friends and family. Steve Nabity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gXMkl0bNlw Steve Nabity, then-CEO of Accuquilt, shared the moving story of this graduation quilt, made for his daughter. As he says in the interview, “every quilt has a story. Every quilt. And don’t take it for granted, because every quilt means something”. Kim Van Etten https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt-pxkjsuO8 And our final Giving Quilt story: Kim Van Etten shares a quilt made by her grandmother, who gifted a quilt to more than 50 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. As Kim says in the video, “she’s the reason I quilt”. Kim still uses her grandmother’s sewing machine to make her own quilts. Want more quilt stories? Visit our giving page now for three great examples of the work…
Go Tell It at the Quilt Show! interviews recorded at the 10th biennial Sacred Threads Exhibition in Herndon, Virginia, are now being posted to the Quilt Alliance’s YouTube channel. The Go Tell It! project was created to capture the stories of quilts where quiltmakers and quilt lovers gather. Exhibition curators, museum staff, quilt show and guild program chairs from all over the United States are recording these 3-minute videos to document quilts being shared in their communities. The videos often reveal personal stories about the people, events, places, or ideas that inspired the featured quilt. Sacred Threads artist Christina Blais shared the story of her quilt in a Go Tell It! video recorded by QA staff member Emma Parker. “Lachrymose” mourns the loss of friend and fellow quiltmaker, Karen Loprete. Karen was a member of the Quilt Alliance and made quilts for three of our annual contests (shared below). Christina also recorded a Go Tell It! interview at the 2015 Sacred Threads exhibition–watch it here.
Have you made quilts inspired or influenced by a fellow artist? Has the work of another quiltmaker touched you or taught you in a unique way? We encourage you to record your story. Preserve this memory for yourself, for the friends and family of your inspiration, and for the sake of history. The Go Tell It! project was designed to be a public project and do-it-yourself instructions are available on the Quilt Alliance website. Sharing your quilt story is as easy as:
Pick a spot and set up your quilt You are important, and so is your quilt! Be sure we can see it fully and clearly by hanging it on neutral background, without a lot of activity going on behind it. The teller should stand in front of the quilt to talk. Film your video in a bright spot with good lighting so that the quilt is visible. Near a window, outdoors, or in a room with bright light during the day is best. Try to capture the best sound you can. We want to be able to hear the story of your quilt loud and clear! Film a test video first to see how it looks and sounds to you. Important: if you’re using a phone to film your video, rotate your phone so it’s horizontal (landscape), not vertical.
Start filming If you’re filming yourself, set your camera (or phone) on something sturdy so the video doesn’t shake and bounce. Better yet, get a friend to help! Start your video with: “My name is ________ and I’m telling my quilt story in [City, State] on [date of recording]”. Don’t leave this line out! It’s how we’ll know it’s part of the Go Tell It! project. Then, start talking! You can share anything that you feel is important about the quilt: how you made it, why you made it, who gave it to you, why it’s a meaningful quilt for you… the sky’s the limit! Well, three minutes is the limit, so you’ll want to keep an eye on the video timer.
Share your video Share your video here. You’ll be able to upload your video and enter information about the “teller” and details about the quilt. On this page your will also find a downloadable cue card to help your teller start their video, and a link to the online release form for the project. Once you upload your video, Quilt Alliance staff will do some simple edits, adding Go Tell It! and Quilt Alliance graphics to the video, and then upload it to the Quilt Alliance YouTube Channel. You will be notified once the video is live and then you can embed the video on your own website, blog or share it via social media.
[H2]FAQS[/H2] [accordion style=”boxed” open=””] [accordion_toggle title=”What do I talk about? Can I have a friend ask me questions?”]You can talk about anything you want! Whatever you think is important about the quilt–what makes it special to you, why you like it, why you don’t, what makes it unusual… the sky’s the limit, really! If you made the quilt, you might talk about inspiration, technique, or special meaning. If you inherited or purchased the quilt, you could tell us why you love it or the story of how it came to you.We just ask that if you’re recording a Go Tell It video, your voice is the only voice we hear. If you want to write a few notes, or practice beforehand, go for it! [/accordion_toggle] [accordion_toggle title=”Do I need a special camera or microphone or lights?”]No! If you’re in a well-lit, quiet room and the video is easy to see and hear, you can use any video camera you’d like. If you do have access to a video camera, or lighting, that’s even better. You’ll want to make sure to position your lights so that there aren’t too many shadows on the quilt. If you’re an organization considering purchasing entry-level video equipment, send us an email and we’ll tell you what we use.[/accordion_toggle] [accordion_toggle title=”I have a lot of quilts I’d like to share. Can I make more than one video? Or can I share more than one quilt in a video?”]You can submit as many Go Tell It! videos as you’d like! We do ask that each video follow the Go Tell It! formula: one person and one quilt per video. If you’d like to share more quilts, feel free to make more videos–just submit one per quilt. [/accordion_toggle] [accordion_toggle title=”How much does it cost to participate?”] Go Tell It! is a project of the non-profit Quilt Alliance, and it’s free for anyone to submit a video or watch the videos we’ve collected. If you would like to have a QA staff member visit your community to record Go Tell It! videos of members of your group, schedule a Quilt Story Road Show program. If you’d like to support the project or believe that documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts is important, you can make a donation to the Quilt Alliance in any amount or become an Alliance member. [/accordion_toggle] [accordion_toggle title=”Can I add a close-up image of my quilt to my video?”] If you have video editing skills and time to spare, feel free to add some still photographs of details of your quilt. We don’t recommend trying to zoom in on the quilt during the video–in general, it’s best to focus on the person talking, and try not to move the camera around. If you’d like to add a still image to your video before uploading and feel comfortable editing video, go for it! [/accordion_toggle] [accordion_toggle title=”Can I do the video outside?”] Yes! As long as you feel like your voice will be easily heard in the video (ie. not too many wind/traffic/nature noises) and the background isn’t too distracting, you can film your video anywhere you’d like. Getting outside sometimes provides the best, most even light for making a video. [/accordion_toggle]…
The photo at right, taken by Dayna Lee on September 18, 1990, accompanied an article by Linda Roach for the 1992 Louisiana Folklife Festival booklet. Roach is Director of the School of Literature and Language at Louisiana Tech University and director of the Louisiana Quilt Documentation project. It’s been almost thirty years since this photo was taken, and group quilting is still practiced and enjoyed amongst today’s quilters. In many ways, the notion and practice has expanded. Quilters can now toggle between working virtually through online communities and coming together in person for collaboration, classes or shows. At the 2014 International Quilt Festival, the Quilt Alliance documented seven members of such a group called the Amazing Eight. The friends, who hail from Mississippi, Texas, Missouri, Iowa, Ohio, Illinois and Minnesota, met via a popular community forum hosted by The Quilt Show.com. In 2009, the group of virtual friends made plans to meet in person at Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas. At the show they met for dinner and enthusiastically started discussing the idea of making a quilt together. Inspired by that first dinner gathering, the group made two collaborative quilts. In 2014, their third collaborative quilt, “Amazing Aztec–Nicolor Dream Quilt” won first place in the Group Quilt category in the Quilts: A World of Beauty Judged Show at Quilt Festival. Seven members of the group shared their story about the quilt at Quilt Festival by recording a Go Tell It at the Quilt Show! video: Karen Fitzpatrick, Mary Holman, Wanda Myers, Cindy Neville, Carol Moellers, Dana Lynch and Mary Kay Runyan. (The eighth Amazing member is Bridget Lilja.) We’re proud to capture the stories of quilt makers and quilt lovers where they gather through the Go Tell It! project. We encourage everyone with a quilt to document, preserve and share the story of that quilt before it fades away. Instructions for making your own DIY Go Tell It! video can be found on our website here. Click on thumbnails below to view each video. …
Here at the Quilt Alliance, one of the best parts of our jobs is hearing from people who have incredible quilt stories to share. Often, these stories are about the quilts they have made–stories straight from the maker about the joy and work of quiltmaking. But we also love hearing stories about how quilts have impacted communities. One of the reasons the Quilt Alliance founded the Go Tell It at the Quilt Show! project in 2012 was to capture the stories happening all around us that did not quite fit the mold of our Quilters’ S.O.S. – Save Our Stories (QSOS) oral history project. QSOS was launched in 1999 to record the history of today’s quiltmakers in their own voice. Interviewees were invited by volunteers to share a broad picture of their life as a quiltmaker in a 30-40 minute interview recorded on audio cassette or digital audio. In the twenty years since QSOS was founded, over 1,200 interviews were documented and are now archived in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. A small sample of the collection is now available with transcripts, indexed descriptions and full audio here: qsos.quiltalliance.org/gallery. With support from the quilting community, the entire QSOS collection will be available for listening, searching and browsing on the new site by the end of 2020. Find out how you can sponsor a QSOS interview and ensure its timely transitioned to the new site. In contrast, Go Tell It! is a video documentation project designed to capture the stories of quilt lovers where they gather. Because one does not need to be a quiltmaker to participate in this project, we have been able to gather stories about quilts from family members, collectors, guilds, historians, curators, industry leaders and people who own and love quilts. “Tellers” are sometimes the maker of the quilt they share in their video recording, but just as often, the telling is done by someone else connected to the quilt. The age, style, genre, purpose, size, and origin of the quilts shared in Go Tell It! videos run the gamut from antique crazy quilts to award-winning modern quilts to quilts made for social causes. At QuiltCon 2017, Quilt Alliance staffer Emma Parker recorded three Go Tell It! videos that featured three members of the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild talking about their Quilts for Pulse project. At QuiltCon 2016 in Savannah, Georgia, Sarah Lauzon, Jodi Peterman and Sharleen Jespersen each stood in front of the Quilts for Pulse exhibit and told the story of how their guild went about collecting blocks, quilt tops and finished quilts to comfort and support those affected by the tragic shooting at the Pulse Nightclub on June 16, 2016 in Orlando, Florida. Unlike most Go Tell It! videos, these three describe a collective effort – the story of 1,800 quilts, instead of one. The Quilt Alliance was proud to be able to document, preserve and share the stories of the Quilts for Pulse project, and we invite other guilds and groups undertaking community projects, large and small, to consider recording their stories with our DIY Go Tell It! guidelines here. Click on the thumbnails below to switch videos. …
We first met Laura Hartrich at QuiltCon 2015 in Austin, Texas, when she recorded a Go Tell It at the Quilt Show! video with us. Her quilt “Quilt for Our Bed,” pieced by Laura and quilted by Nikki Maroon, won the People’s Choice Award at QuiltCon that year, and we were thrilled to document Laura’s quilt story, along with 39 others exhibited at the show.
In 2016, Laura founded an Instagram account, Quilt Stories, that already has over 3,000 followers. We recently asked Laura to tell us more about her inspiration and goals for the project. Q: Laura, what motivated you to start the Quilt Stories Instagram Page? A: To be completely honest, the motivation was a little selfish. I’m a quilter myself. On my good days, I love the community and inspiration that come along with being connected to so many quilters around the world, via social media, especially Instagram. On my not-so-good days, I struggle with comparing my work to that of others, and feeling like I’ll never measure up to the vast talent that’s out there in the quilt world. I wanted to create a project that would remind me that it’s not all about talent and design and book deals and QuiltCon acceptance letters. I thought providing a platform for people to tell their most meaningful quilt stories would give me that reminder. That’s not to say I don’t love great design and show-worthy quilts. But I wanted to showcase quilts that shine for other reasons… Q: Your page header says: “A place to share quilts with special stories. A place to be reminded why we quilt.” Do you give any perimeters for the stories people submit? A: I really don’t. I let people interpret it as they will. I also don’t curate the account at all. I post all the stories people submit, in the order received. If someone thinks their quilt has a story worth telling, I want @quiltstories to be the place where they share it. And I really believe that every handmade quilt has a story worth telling. The people who follow the account have all been so sweet and supportive when folks share quilts, whether they are commenting on a master quilter’s work or a first time quilter’s work. The focus is more on the intention of the maker, and a little less on the end result. I think it’s a special corner of social media, where positivity and encouragement are the norm. Q: When did you start the page and how many stories have you received since you started? A: I started the account in October 2016. I’ve shared a story almost every day for the last 9 months. There are almost 200 stories posted, and the Quilt Stories community, as I like to think of it, has grown to over 3,000 followers. Q: What is the funniest story you’ve received? A: I don’t actually receive a lot of funny stories! Most of them are more purely in the happy or sad range. But I can think of a couple. My favorite has to be from Jill of @pieladyquilts who sent in a story about a quilt she made called “Let’s Get Married” (pictured at left). She explained how her husband proposed so unexpectedly (after a very short courtship!) that she “nearly drove off the road.” Her full description was funnier than mine. You can scroll back and find her post on December 8, 2016. Q: What story made you the most emotional? A: Oh, wow… There are so many beautiful stories submitted, that either make your heart break or burst with happiness. It feels impossible to choose one. Nikki of @babylovesquilts sent in a quilt (pictured at right) she made for friends who lost their baby 23 weeks into their pregnancy. That was a heart-wrenching story. Many quilt stories I receive tell a story of loss and grief. A memorial quilt can bring healing both to the maker and the recipient. On the happier side, I loved a story from Melanie, @southerncharmquilts, about admiring a picture of her great-grandmother with a beautiful hexie quilt top (pictured at left), but no one in her family knowing where that quilt had ended up. Not long after, Melanie received a phone call from her grandma, who had found the quilt top, bagged up and in mint condition. Melanie was, of course, thrilled, and went on to finish the quilt. Quilters finishing long-forgotten quilts is a common theme, and always a happy story. Q: What are your plans for the project? A: I can’t say that I have any plans for the project, other than to keep posting as long as people are willing to share their stories with me and the Quilt Stories audience. Thank you for featuring Quilt Stories, and thank you for all the great work you to do preserve stories of quilts at Quilt…
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Add your voice to this contest! The Quilt Alliance has extended the deadline (now July 3, 2017) for its 11th annual quilt contest. This year’s theme is “Voices.” Artists are invited to share their opinions, memories, language, conversation and truths in the form of a 16” x 16” wall quilt. Help us document the state of quilting in 2017 and let your voice be heard. As part of our mission, the Quilt Alliance ensures the documentation and preservation of the stories of quilts and quiltmakers through our oral history projects. We value the human voice, as well as your voice expressed in cloth and thread. Everyone who makes quilts is encouraged to enter our annual contest regardless of their style or technique. Traditional, modern, art, longarm, hand quilting, applique, piecing are all welcomed and valued. Register for the Contest! For full information and registration, visit the Quilt Alliance website here. Registration is online. Finished quilts must be mailed to the Quilt Alliance office in Asheville, North Carolina with a postmark no later than July 3, 2017. The quilts will be exhibited on our website, and at 2017 Alliance events, including the Not Fade Away conference on July 15 in Herndon, Virginia. Other exhibition venues include the Quilters Take Manhattan fundraising event in New York City on September 19 and in the Alliance booth at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Nov. 1-4. All quilts will then be auctioned online in mid to late November to benefit the Quilt Alliance. All quilts will be labeled using StoryPatches. These special quilt labels have a QR code to link the quilt to its photo and documentation online. You can scan the label and instantly find out the artist’s name, artist’s statement and link to the artist’s website. The mission of the nonprofit Quilt Alliance is to document, preserve and share the stories of all types of quilters and every sort of quilt. The Alliance’s oral history projects, Q.S.O.S. and Go Tell It at the Quilt Show!, have recorded more than 1,200 stories of today’s quiltmakers. The Quilt Alliance helps quilters, quilt owners and groups like guilds and museums, record, archive and present the cultural heritage of quilting in America. Past Alliance contest quilts, left to right: Cover Us (2006) by Yvonne Porcella, Ode to Tamar (2009) by Allison Ann Aller, and Pineapple Log Cabin Renewed (2014) by Jane Hall. Contest Sponsors We are proud to announce that Handi Quilter Inc. will provide our top prizes. First, second and third place finishers will receive an HQ Stitch sewing machine (models 710, 510, and 210 respectively). Brenda Groelz, Director of Marketing and Education for the company says “At Handi Quilter, we give quilters the tools to make quilts that last. We applaud the mission of the Quilt Alliance to save the stories as well as the quilts. This contest allows quilters to further the Alliance mission, while also allowing quilters the opportunity to document and preserve their work in perpetuity.” Additional contest prizes contributed by these generous sponsors: Moda Fabrics, Aurifil, AccuQuilt, EZ Quilting, Simplicity Creative Group, and StoryPatches. View the complete “Voices” contest guidelines on the Quilt Alliance website here….
