Running Stitch Podcast

Running Stitch, A QSOS Podcast, is hosted by Janneken Smucker, Professor of History at West Chester University. Join us as we explore quilt stories, revealing the inner thoughts, feelings, and motivations of contemporary quiltmakers by drawing from Quilters S.O.S. — Save Our Stories, the long running oral history project created by the nonprofit Quilt Alliance in 1999.

Quilts and quiltmaking serve as a lens to examine some of today’s most pressing issues, including activism, public health, politics, race, and the economy. We’ll dig into the QSOS archive to listen to excerpts from past interviews, and bring back interviewees to ask them about what they are working on and thinking about presently. Listen below, or wherever you get your podcasts!

Season 3 episodes available now.

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Season 1:

Season 2:

Season 3:

Season 1, Episode 1: First Quilts

Episode summary

Welcome to the very first episode of Running Stitch, the QSOS Podcast. For our very first episode, we’re talking with New York City quilter Victoria Findlay Wolfe. Victoria was first interviewed for the QSOS project in 2011. Our host, Janneken Smucker, talks with Victoria about that first interview, her first quilts, and how her career has evolved in the nine years since. Janneken and Victoria also talk about making a first quilt with their young daughters, what makes a great quilt, and just why we care so much about quilt labeling. Join us for an episode all about firsts!

About our guest

Victoria Findlay Wolfe, Is a NYC based International Award Winning Quilter and teacher. She was raised on a farm in central Minnesota, and learned to sew and quilt when she was just four years old. Victoria graduated from the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota with a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art in 1993, and a year later moved to New York City.

Visit Victoria online at www.VFWquilts.com, on Instagram @victoriafindlaywolfe, and Facebook at Victoria Findlay Wolfe Quilts

Season 1, Episode 2: Quilts and Activism

Episode summary

Episode 2 of Running Stitch focuses on quilts and activism. Quilters have long used their work to make statements and advocate for change, tackling abolition, temperance, suffrage, and many other social justice issues. Join host Janneken Smucker for a conversation with quilter and author of Why We Quilt, Thomas Knauer, discussing why quilts are great objects for making statements, and how Thomas communicates politically through his own quilts.

About our guest

Thomas Knauer began his career teaching design at Drake University before turning to quilting. He has designed fabrics for several leading manufacturers, and his work has been exhibited in quilt shows and museums across the globe, including the International Quilt Study Center & Museum, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Des Moines Art Center, the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, and the Cranbrook Art Museum. Knauer is the author of Why We Quilt, as well as two previous books, including The Quilt Design Coloring Workbook.

Visit Thomas online at www.thomasknauersews.com and on Instagram @thomasknauer

Season 1, Episode 3:

Episode summary

Let’s face it. It’s 2020 and 2020 won’t quit. We are living through difficult times. While the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are unevenly felt, we are all in the midst of it. QSOS oral history interviews often ask, “How have you used quilts to get through a difficult time?”Our guest for this episode, artist and maker Melanie Testa, first interviewed for the project in 2010, joins host Janneken Smucker to share how she has responded to the COVID-19 crisis by digging into her vast fabric stash and a network of generous friends to make masks to distribute to essential workers.

About our guest

Melanie Testa is an accomplished textile and quilt artist. She holds a degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology in Textile/Surface Design and exhibits her fiber art at various galleries and quilt shows around the country. Her most recent book offering, Playful Fabric Printing is coauthored with Carol Soderlund by Crafting a Life, LLC.

In addition to this, Melanie has written Dreaming from the Journal Page, Transforming the Sketchbook to Art by North Light Press and Inspired To Quilt, Creative Experiments in Art Quilt Imagery by Interweave Press and also authored a Quilting Arts DVD Workshop called Print, Collage, Quilt.

Season 1, Episode 4: Quilts and Civil Rights with Carolyn Mazloomi

Episode summary

During the week after the killing of George Floyd, Running Stitch host Janneken Smucker spoke with Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi about quilts, race, and the long struggle for civil rights. Dr. Mazloomi founded the Women of Color Quilters Network and has curated many landmark exhibits centered on race and civil rights, including “Journey of Hope: Quilts Inspired by President Barack Obama.” This episode features excerpts from several oral history interviews conducted for the Quilts for Obama QSOS sub-project.

About our guest

Season 1, Episode 5: Quiltmaking Amid Crisis

Episode summary

Quilt legend Jinny Beyer has seen it all in the quilt world over the last 50 years. In this episode, host Janneken Smucker revisits Jinny’s 2013 interview when she shared the quilt she made following 9-11. Jinny joins Janneken to discuss quiltmaking amid crisis, including how independent quilt shops like Jinny Beyer Studio are weathering the current pandemic.

About our guest

Season 1, Episode 6: Quilts and Writing: A Panel Discussion

Episode summary

This episode–our last episode of season 1 of Running Stitch–features a panel discussion about quilts and writing moderated by host Janneken Smucker. Our four panelists are quilt journalist Meg Cox, novelist Frances O’Roark Dowell, quilter and mathematics professor Chawne Kimber, and poet and educator Gwen Westerman. All four are writers and quiltmakers and you’ll hear them discuss connections between quiltmaking and writing, their creative processes, and the intersection of quilts and words.

The discussion was recorded live as part of the Textile Talks lecture series, featuring public programming from six quilt and fiber art organizations across the country. You can see the video recording of this discussion on YouTube.

About our guests

Season 2, Episode 1: On Creativity

Episode summary

Running Stitch is back for Season Two, again digging into the QSOS oral history archive to explore the meaning of quilts in American life. In this episode, host Janneken Smucker talks to quiltmaking legend Ricky Tims about the role of creativity in his life. As a quiltmaker, musician, composer, co-host of The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims, and founder of Quilt Life magazine, Ricky embodies creativity. We’ll revisit his first interview for the QSOS project, recorded two decades ago in 2000, and continue the conversation with a new interview exploring the intersection of music and quilting, his perspective on the creative spirit, and Ricky’s new novel, Lizzy Albright and the Attic Window, co-written with Kat Bowser.

About our guest

Ricky Tims has successfully blended two diverse passions into one very unique and interesting career. His skills as a pianist, composer and producer have been evident by the thousands who have heard his music. His success as a quilter is equally significant.

He is known in the international world of quilting as a best-selling author, enthusiastic and encouraging teacher, an award-winning quilter, fabric designer, and a talented and spellbinding speaker. His innovative and entertaining presentations, feature live music and humor combined with scholarly insights and wisdom. His quilts have been displayed worldwide and are highly regarded as excellent examples of contemporary quilts with traditional appeal.

Visit Ricky online at www.rickytims.com

Season 2, Episode 2: Great Quilts

Episode summary

Quilters S.O.S. – Save Our Stories oral history interviews often include the question, “What makes a great quilt?” Running Stitch host Janneken Smucker asks today’s guest, quilt historian Merikay Waldvogel, to answer this most challenging question, while they also listen back to other interviewees’ responses. What’s the answer? Good planning? Lots of fabrics? First place ribbons? Immortality? Tune in to hear from one of the world’s foremost quilt authorities, who has seen 10,000s of historic quilts, and finds something to like about each one.

About our guest

Merikay Waldvogel is an internationally known quilt historian author, and lecturer. She is widely considered an expert on mid-20th century quilts. Her expertise and tireless research into quilting and the quilters who made them led to her induction into the Quilters Hall of Fame in 2009.

Learn more about Merikay at https://quiltershalloffame.net/merikay-waldvogel/

Season 2, Episode 3: Temperature Check on the Quilt Industry

Episode summary

For well over a century, quilts have meant business. A thriving quilt industry has existed since the 19th century, publishing patterns, selling fabrics and supplies, promoting quiltmaking, and offering celebrity endorsements. In today’s age of social media and online retail, the business side of quilts has continued to thrive, while navigating all sorts of bumps in the road, including, most recently, a global pandemic.

This week, we talk with Linda Pumphrey, Senior Account Executive for Mountain Mist. For decades, Linda has worked for quilt companies, criss-crossing the country managing her accounts. This year, she has stayed home, Zooming with her customers and colleagues. We’ll talk with Linda about how quilt businesses have adapted, and the role of celebrity in the quilt industry, both today and in the past.

About our guest

Linda’s life-long passion is quilts, old and new. As a quilter, she found herself able to feed her passion with a career spanning over 25 years in the quilting industry. Recently back with the brand that started her career, she is Senior Account Executive for Fibrix, LLC, makers of Mountain Mist batting. She has been an active member on several non-profit boards, including the Quilt Alliance board.

Linda is known for her hand quilting for which she has won international awards. Linda started collecting quilts in the mid 1990’s and focused on quilts were the design contained very small pieces. Her collection has grown to include international pieces from her travels.

Season 2, Episode 4: Quilts and Authenticity with Denyse Schmidt

Episode summary

What makes a quilt ‘sing’? Join us for this episode of Running Stitch, with our guest Denyse Schmidt, to explore that question and more. We’ll talk about what it means—for an object OR its maker—to be ‘authentic’.

Denyse is a groundbreaking quiltmaker, and the designer of numerous patterns and fabrics, the author of Denyse Schmidt: Modern Quilts, Traditional Inspiration and Denyse Schmidt Quilts. We’ll revisit her 2012 QSOS interview, explore the places and eras that inspire Denyse’s work, and end our conversation discussing her upcoming fabric line, “Five and Ten”.

About our guest

A former graphic designer and graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, Denyse Schmidt has been sewing since she was a young girl, taught by her mother. As a professional seamstress, Denyse worked on everything from tutus and bishop’s mitres to fine clothing. She brings these eclectic influences together in patchwork quilts characterized by simple graphics, rich color, and quality workmanship.

Denyse’s work has been published in hundreds of distinguished magazines and newspapers world wide, including: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times Magazine, TIME, American Craft, Yankee Magazine, O the Oprah Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Better Homes & Gardens, House Beautiful, Country Living, Town & Country and People Magazine. She has appeared on several national television shows, including Martha Stewart Living. Her work has been exhibited around the country. She lives in Bridgeport, CT.

Season 2, Episode 5: Researching Quilt History with Barbara Brackman

Episode summary

Have you ever wondered how quilt historians can unravel the story of a quilt with just a few threads? Do you want the inside scoop on how researchers look for “clues in the calico”? Our guest this week is celebrated quilt historian Barbara Brackman. Running Stitch host Janneken Smucker talked with Barbara about quilt history research and how it’s evolved in the 21st century, how quilts can be used as a lens for women’s history, and the new, expanded edition of her Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.

This episode was recorded live, as part of the Textile Talks free weekly lecture series. You can see the entire interview, including a Q&A with Barbara on our YouTube channel.

About our guest

Barbara Brackman is a quilt historian, quilter, author and lecturer. She is the author of many books about quilt history and quilt patterns, including Clues in the Calico, Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns, Facts & Fabrications: Unraveling the History of Quilts and Slavery, Making History–Quilts & Fabric from 1890-1970, and many others. Barbara also develops quilt patterns, maintains two blogs about quilt history, and is available for online lectures and programs.

Season 2, Episode 6: Outlier Quilts with Joe Cunningham

Episode summary

What do one-of-a-kind, unusual, or outlier quilts tell us about the quiltmaking tradition? In this episode, Joe Cunningham joins host Janneken Smucker to revisit their 2007 interview and discuss how American quilt history reveals a tradition of experimentation, problem-solving, and creativity that today’s quilters can draw on. Joe further contemplates the relationship of art and quilts, recalling his own evolution and liberation as a quiltmaker.

About our guest

Joe Cunningham has been a professional quilt artist since 1979. He has written essays on the subject for museum catalogues, books and magazines. His book, Men and the Art of Quiltmaking was the first book on its subject. In 2004 he received a $30,000 Shulte Grant from the Fort Mason Foundation. In 2009 he received a grant to study with the Gees Bend quilters in Alabama. In 2010 he was artist in residence at the De Young Museum in San Francisco, which purchased one of his quilts for its permanent collection. Joe travels throughout the country to give lectures and workshops on quiltmaking. His ten books on quiltmaking  include the first biography of a living quilter, the first book on men who make quilts (Men and the Art of Quiltmaking,) and a definitive book on marking quilts for quilting called Quilting with Style, published by AQS. He has been seen on the Peabody Award-winning PBS series Craft in America, the HGTV series “Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson,” as well as  “The Quilt Show” with Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson, and others. Cunningham has performed his musical quilt show, “Joe the Quilter,” for guilds and theaters nationwide. His latest book is “Man Made Quilts: Civil War to the Present,” a catalogue for the show of the same name at the Shelburne Museum. His quilts are in the permanent collections of the DeYoung museum, The Shelburne Museum, The Newark Museum, The San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles and many private collections. Visit Joe online.

Season 3, Episode 1: Learning to Quilt with Sarah Steiner

Episode summary

Some people made sourdough, some people got pandemic pets. Sarah Steiner became the @pandemicquilter, learning how to quilt from youtube and Instagram, and making over 20 quilts since summer of 2020 after not previously knowing how to wind a bobbin. Sarah joins Running Stitch host, Janneken Smucker, to listen back to QSOS interview excerpts about how quilters learned their skills during earlier eras, sharing how the pandemic inspired her to quilt.

About our guest

Sarah Steiner lives in Goshen, Indiana, with her husband, Rob, and their two sons. She is a first grade teacher and now adds quilting to her list of hobbies which includes cooking, reading and walking her dog. Visit Sarah’s Instagram, @pandemicquilter.

Season 3, Episode 2: Song Quilts with Eliza Hardy Jones

Episode summary

One of the most exciting aspects of the quiltmaking tradition is that within it, artists continue to innovate the form. Eliza Hardy Jones, has done just that with her remarkable Song Quilts series, combining folk music, oral history, and her creation of a notation system that transcribes music into quilt form. If that sounds completely cryptic, join Eliza, a professional musician, as she joins Running Stitch host Janneken Smucker, to discuss her Song Quilts project. They also listen to QSOS interview excerpts from Michael Cummings and Ricky Tims, who both, like Eliza, incorporate music into their quiltmaking.

About our guest

Eliza Hardy Jones is a quiltmaker and internationally touring musician, singer, and songwriter from Philadelphia. She currently tours with Grammy-nominated artists Iron & Wine and Grace Potter, in addition to releasing her own original music. Jones has given talks on her quilts across the U.S. and in Russia, and her work has been featured in various quilt publications. According to Jones, she “inherited a love of stitch and song from a long line of wild women, musicians, and seamstresses.” Bio via the International Quilt Museum.

Season 3, Episode 3: Going Pro with Zak Foster

Episode summary

We often think of quilters as hobbyists, typically women who like to stitch beautiful bedcovers for use around the home, or to lovingly give to new babies or show off at quilt guild meetings. But for centuries, alongside hobbyist quilters have existed professional quilters, those who find a way to earn money for their craft and even quit their so called day jobs. Going pro requires a big leap of faith, especially for younger quiltmakers, like the ones we are featuring during season three of Running Stitch. And today’s guest has recently taken that leap.

A few months ago Zak Foster was still earning a living as a high school Spanish instructor, something he had been doing for 18 years. But this fall he made the leap to professional, and in this interview he shares with us his motivations for doing so, some of the ways he is marketing his services, and he’ll tell us about the quilt he helped make that recently appeared on the red carpet at the Met Gala.

About our guest

Zak Foster has been quilting and working with textiles prolifically since 2012 incorporating found fabrics and natural dyes into his work. He is drawn to preserving the stories of quilts and specializes in memory quilts. Originally from the Piedmont of North Carolina, he now resides in Brooklyn, New York, with his partner. More of his work can be seen at zakfoster.com. 

Season 3, Episode 4: Sewing with Purpose with Sara Trail

Episode summary

Sara Trail, and the non-profit organization she founded in 2017, the Social Justice Sewing Academy, is part of a long tradition of quilt artists who use quilts as part of their activist practices. Sara has been sewing and making quilts since she was a child, and transformed her work as a quiltmaker and fashion designer into that of community organizer. The Social Justice Sewing Academy has a mission to quote “empower individuals to utilize textile art for personal transformation, community cohesion, and to begin the journey toward becoming an agent of social change.” 

Looking back to the nineteenth century, abolitionists, suffragists, and temperance activists all made quilts that espoused their beliefs, an essential outlet particularly during a time in which women could not vote or run for political office. Quilters continued this practice of using quilts in their activism into the twentieth century, projecting opinions and supporting causes, with Red Cross quilts, quilts celebrating New Deal programs, and quilts supporting political and social causes. Again in the late twentieth century, quilts emerged as a potent symbol of the feminist movement, along with loved ones who memorialized those who died of AIDS with quilt panels, and others who advocated against nuclear weapons, environmental destruction, and gun violence through their quilts. And quilts have remained an important means of communicating about racial injustice, a sad reminder that abolition, emancipation, and the civil rights movement have not in fact left us with a racially just society. 

About our guest

Sara Trail learned to sew at the young age of 4, and is now a successful author, sewing teacher, and pattern and fabric designer. At age 13, she wrote a nationally published book, Sew with Sara, that teaches teens and tweens how to sew cute clothes and accessories for fun and profit. At 15, she starred in a nationally published DVD, Cool Stuff to Sew With Sara. She then designed two fabric collections, Folkheart and Biology 101, and a pattern collection with Simplicity, Designed with Love by Sara. Her pattern collection features prom dresses, backpack patterns, hoodies, and jackets as well as aprons and tote bags. While attending UC Berkeley, Sara created a quilt in memory of Trayvon Martin, and her love for sewing and passion for social justice intertwined. After graduating from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, she founded the Social Justice Sewing Academy (SJSA). As Founder of SJSA, Sara actively travels to facilitate lectures and workshops. She is also key in developing and implementing the artistic vision of the organization.

Season 3, Episode 5: Radical Quilt Histories with Jess Bailey

Episode summary

Quilt enthusiasts have been writing about the craft’s history for over 100 years now, first focused on collecting and sharing patterns based on historic quilts, and later collecting and trading published patterns, in essence building an analog database of quilts. These women began to interpret and synthesize quilt history, eventually moving their newspaper clippings and mimeographed copies to digitized forms. Today, quilt history flourishes in thousands of books and articles, online spaces, and exhibit galleries that collectively have expanded our understanding of the history of quilts and quiltmaking. The QSOS oral history collection of the Quilt Alliance has further contributed to that history by recording and preserving interviews with living quiltmakers. And Running Stitch now mines that archive, sharing highlights from the collection of over 1200 interviews with you.

Jess Bailey is adding another layer to our understanding of quilt history. A young and relatively new quiltmaker, Jess makes quilts as a one woman studio called Public Library Quilts, a moniker she discusses with host Janneken Smucker in this episode. In addition to making quilts, Jess is an art historian currently living and working in London, where she studies medieval manuscripts. She combined her interest in quilts and historical research in her recently published zine, Many Hands Make a Quilt: Short Histories of Radical Quilting, published by Common Threads Press.

About our guest

The art historian and quilter behind Public Library Quilts (@publiclibraryquilts), Jess Bailey (she/her) believes knowing where art comes from has the power to shift present structures of harm. Jess is the author of Many Hands Make a Quilt: Short Histories of Radical Quilting from Common Threads Press, 2021. Currently finishing her PhD in the History of Art department at the University of California at Berkeley, she is based in London, UK as a research fellow. Jess’ academic writing addresses the relationship between state violence and interpersonal violence in European art before the 16th century. She has taught for the Prison University Project, UC Berkeley, and Universität Bern and guest lectured at Williams College and the University of Munich. Her research has been published by Kritische Berichte and Routledge Press. In her spare time she quilts using traditional folk art techniques passed down in her North American family. She is the co-founder of the LION Quilt project with gardener Sui Searle, @DecoloniseTheGarden, and the primary quilter of the resulting plant dyed Land in Our Names Quilt which raised over 18k GBP (25k USD) in Spring 2021 for the land and racial justice work of @LandInOurNames.

Season 3, Episode 6: Quilts Below the Radar with Roderick Kiracofe

Episode summary

An interview with Roderick Kiracofe, quilt collector and author of Unconventional & Unexpected: American Quilts Below the Radar, 1950-2000, and historian Janneken Smucker about quilts that defy convention, the creativity of quiltmakers, and what makes a museum-quality quilt. Listen as Rod talks about his career as a quilt collector and seller, and about the weird, wonky, wonderful  beauty of American quilts made after 1950.

This bonus episode was originally recorded as a Textile Talk in front of a live Zoom audience. See the quilts referenced in today’s episode in the Textile Talk recording here.

About our guest

I grew up in a small Indiana town in the 1950s, and that time and place certainly affected how I see the world. Our home did not have original art, but my parents certainly had style. I had no formal training in art, but my friendships with artists as I became a young adult led me to seek out and look at art. Objects, architecture, style, design and art fascinate me.

Household objects and photographs provide me with a lens to view times that came before. I love how quilts and photographs document people’s lives. The first quilt that I ever saw and slept under was in Los Angeles in 1973, and the next year was the first time I saw a quilt hung on the wall as art.  My college girlfriend gave me my first camera, and I began to experience the world through a lens. My first boyfriend had quilts from his family, and together we started buying and selling them. More of my quilt narrative is found in the books I have authored and published. Unconventional & Unexpected, The American Quilt, Cloth & Comfort, Homage to Amanda, and The Quilt Digest each grew out of very simple ideas while influencing and impacting the next one. I never dreamed these projects would be created or anticipated the impact they would have.