Pinwheel
This is one of the most recognizable and popular blocks in this quilt. It is often changed slightly to form new variations, but this original form of the Pinwheel brings to the mind images of summer and bright light. Usually made in two tones of saturated colors, this block is perfect for a child’s quilt.
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Sheila Lewis
Quilter
Sheila is a life-long quilter. In our interview she told me about how she learned to sew at a young age, and how her family tradition of gathering to work on quilts and sewing projects has never faded. This interview folds well into the research I did for this project, highlighting the way this tradition is passed down and how it can be the catalyst that allows groups to come together.
You can state your name, your pronouns, and why you think you were asked to participate in this project.
Sheila Lewis. My coworker Bryn knows you and she had heard about your project and I had shared a little bit about my quilting and family tradition at work. She saw the connection and asked me if I would be interested in helping you.
That's awesome. So tell us a little bit about your family tradition.
FOR AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER, SINCE I WAS LITTLE, MY FAMILY HAS ALWAYS SEWN AROUND ME.
My grandmother was a seamstress and shop manager. I remember visiting her. Now I know it was kind of like a sweat shop, but they made hospital gowns for the local hospitals. Of course we always sewed and did things at home. My grandmother taught my mom and her sister how to sew and that tradition got passed down. My early memories were probably first or second grade. That was my first quilt project. My mom taught me how to make a quilt for one of my baby dolls. The other memorable memory that I have is that we were snowed in one winter. I have three sisters, and we were all sewing in the living room. We had finished for the day and I was on the floor picking up all the thread scraps out of the carpet while my mom was fixing dinner. I was scooting on my knees across the carpet and I remembered feeling of a prick in my knee. When I looked, I had a needle that was sticking out of my jeans. I took it to my mom and I told her what had happened and she looked at it and she noticed that the whole needle wasn't there. We were looking in my pant leg and we didn't see anything. We could see a little prick in my knee, but it did not look dramatic or anything like that. The next morning when I woke up, my knee was swollen like four times its size and was very hot and red. Of course she took me to the doctor. I had a needle that had went all the way into my bone in my knee. I ended up having to get it surgically removed. That's one of my favorite stories from when I was younger. It's one of my favorite stories to tell about sewing. Luckily it didn't dissuade me from continuing. But I will admit that while I was a teenager, I didn't really think it was the most cool thing to be doing with my family. But my mom was always sewing and she made some dresses for me for special events at school. She made one of my older sister's wedding dresses. She swore she would never do that again cause it had a lot of beads and a very intricate design. But mostly her favorite pastime was quilting. And she was a master seamstress. She would do clothes and she would do alterations for people in the community. She never owned a business doing it. It was something she just did for people. Sometimes as favors. Sometimes they would pay her to hem pants or to take in clothes and things of that nature. As she got older, she started to teach at our local Four H center. I don't know if every state has this, but Kentucky has home extension offices where you can go and you can learn home economic things. Things from gardening, to taking care of livestock, to sewing, to cooking, to canning. The list goes on and on. It's an enrichment program for communities. She taught there for many, many years. I didn't get back into quilting until I was in college. I started a quilt that I'm still finishing- and I've been out of college for over 20 years. My mom insisted that my first big quilt I should do all by hand. After that I could use the sewing machine. She really valued quilts that are done by hand. She would teach us things about how it raises the value of a quilt if you can see that it's been done by hand. That one is still a work in progress. I am getting closer to the end. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Our quarantine has given me more time to work on it. I'm hoping that I can get it done this year.
MY FAMILY STARTED DOING QUILT DAYS. WE TRY TO GET TOGETHER ONCE A MONTH AND WE ROTATE HOUSES. USUALLY THERE'S ABOUT FIVE TO EIGHT OF US THAT COME. ON THE INVITATION LIST, THERE'S PROBABLY UPWARDS OF 15 OR SO PEOPLE.
Not everybody can come every month. We just get together. We've never done anything like a quilting bee where we've all quilted on the same quilt. We talk about it. We wish that we could, but we don't have a hoop big enough to able to do that. But nonetheless, it has a very similar feeling. We'll all sit in somebody's living room or in their kitchen and we'll each work on our own project. We could be at different stages of the process. Sometimes people bring different projects. Not all of them are quilting. Sometimes it's cross-stitch or it could be mending clothes. One of my sisters is a teacher, so some days she comes and brings her papers that she has to grade for school.
IT REALLY IS JUST THE TIME THAT WE CAN HANG OUT AND BE TOGETHER. IT'S NOT REALLY IMPORTANT WHETHER OR NOT YOU'RE SEWING. FOR ME IT IS A GREAT TIME TO GAIN SOME CONFIDENCE AND TO LEARN NEW THINGS ABOUT HOW TO SEW WELL. IT IS NICE TO HAVE SOMEBODY RIGHT THERE NEXT TO YOU WHEN YOU GET STUCK OR WHEN YOU'RE LIKE, 'I'M NOT SURE WHAT TO DO HERE'. YOU CAN GET THE OPINIONS OF EVERYBODY IN THE ROOM.
One of the things that I'm learning, and that I love, is there are lots of different ways to do the same thing. It's kind of like a round robin when somebody has a question. Lots of people chime in and they're like, 'Oh, I would never do it that way. I only do it this way or I prefer do it this way'. At the end of the day you try a couple of different suggestions from some people and you figure out which one feels right for you. That has given me more confidence. When I'm at home sewing alone and I'm stuck I'm like, 'man, I'm just going to try something' if it doesn't work, my seam ripper is my best friend. Take it out and try again.
For this ongoing quilt, are you doing all the piecing by hand and the quilting by hand?
Correct. Yeah, the top has been pieced for many, many years and I really got stuck when it came to quilting. Just because it's very tedious. I think it was also probably the time in my life too. I was recently married, started having kids, so projects like that just got put onto the wayside. I recently picked it back up and started to finish it. I think I'll be finished it this year. I'm kind of halfway through quilting it at the moment. I have done other quilts since then. My mom only required that I hand-do one. I'm learning that it's very normal for quilters to have many projects going at the same time because they can get tedious as you're working on them, and a little boring. Sometimes looking at the same fabric or the same pattern all the time, especially if you're doing a larger quilt, gets boring. It's nice to have some variety and have a couple projects going. I've done a couple of quilts in my lifetime. I think three finished, and I have two in the works.
That's awesome. What patterns have your quilts been?
One of my favorites that I did we decided to redo it as a group. My quilt that I started in college and am still not done with, I'm not sure exactly what the pattern is called. I call it my Christmas quilt because I picked red, green and white fabric. But I don't remember what the pattern was that I picked for it. It has triangles and squares in it. It's a nine patch with the squares on the corners. I'm not sure what that would be called. Also we did what we call a 'no-peak-nine-patch quilt'. We did that the first time many, many years ago. Everybody brought scrap fabric cut to size into squares. We put it all into a laundry basket and we mixed it up. By the handfuls you would grab out three or four handfuls of fabric and we put them into brown paper bags. Then everybody picked a paper bag. Why we like it is that sometimes the hardest part about quilting is trying to create a pleasing pattern. That can be very intimidating sometimes. The method for this no-peak-nine-patch is you just reach your hand in the bag, you pick up two squares, and you sew them together. We laugh because we say that the rule is you're not allowed to put a square back and pick another one. Whatever two you match up have to be sewn together. We've got some cheaters in the group- they like to sneak some back in the pile if they don't like them or if they end up picking up two squares that are the exact same pattern. Sometimes they'll put one back and grab a new one just to try to avoid some awkwardness in the pattern. But really it doesn't matter. Even if you have two blocks of the same fabric sewn together in the end they look beautiful. In the minute when you're sewing a couple of these blocks together, you think there is no way this is going to work. The colors are crazy, the patterns are so disparate. But when you get it put together, it has a really old fashioned look to it.
WE WERE ALWAYS TOLD STORIES ABOUT BACK IN THE DAY. YOU DIDN'T NECESSARILY GO TO THE FABRIC STORE TO BUY YOUR FAVORITE FABRIC. YOU USED OLD CLOTHES AND WHAT YOU HAD. SO ACTUALLY MATCHING FABRIC UP TO GET A MORE PLEASING OVERALL PATTERN OR DESIGN IS A VERY MODERN THING.
So we like no-peak-nine-patches. The first time we did that, we were also doing a jean quilt project on that Quilt Day. I was still very young and I had gotten behind on both projects. To help myself get a little bit further along, I decided to mix the two. I did my no-peak-nine-patch in the center of my jean quilt and I picked a log cabin pattern for the jean fabric.
WHY DO YOU THINK THAT YOU KEPT DOING IT FOR SO LONG?
PROBABLY BECAUSE IT IS ALWAYS AROUND ME. MY GRANDMOTHER ALWAYS HAD A SEWING ROOM. MY MOM HAS A SEWING ROOM. MY AUNT HAS A SEWING ROOM. MY SISTERS AND I, I WOULD SAY WE HAVE THE BEGINNINGS OF A SEWING ROOM. BUT WHEN I SAY THAT MY MOM OR MY AUNT OR MY GRANDMA HAD SEWING ROOMS, IT LOOKED LIKE YOU WERE WALKING INTO A QUILT SHOP.
I was over there a couple months ago before the quarantine and I had told her that my sewing needle had broke and that I was going to have to stop at Walmart and buy some new ones. And she was like, 'Oh no, no, don't do that cause I've got plenty'. She pulls out this big plastic box that is full of sewing machine needles. She was like, 'what size do you need?' It was all organized. Holy cow. That is amazing. So any time that any of us need supplies, we go to her first before we go to the fabric store just because she just has so much. It's kind of a running joke that you never throw away fabric. Even if the pieces are small, you keep everything. Which I struggle with because I'm not generally that type of person. But I have seen them make some beautiful things out of these really small pieces that can be leftover from things.
THEIR QUILT ROOMS- THEY SIT IN THEM AND THEY SEW. THEY ARE JUST SURROUNDED BY SO MANY SUPPLIES. AN ENDLESS AMOUNT. THEY COULD PROBABLY DO ANY CRAFT OR PROJECT AT THE DROP OF A HAT WITHOUT HAVING TO GO TO THE STORE. SOMETIMES THEY STILL DO, BECAUSE THEY CAN'T FIND WHAT THEY'RE LOOKING FOR.
They're like, 'I'm just going to go buy some more. It's in here somewhere, but I can't find it'. They keep their rooms really organized. They're not hoarding rooms. They're kind of pleasant to sin. They feel very warm and cozy. To quilt and to do projects like this, you need task lighting. So the lighting's in the room are kind of warm and it's just inviting. It's just comforting.
That's lovely. Is this a skill that you've started to teach to your children?
Yeah. My oldest is 16. I have two boys, so they're not really into sewing. When they were little, when we would go to Quilt Day, they would always tag along with me. My mom is a very patient teacher, and my aunts and a couple of my other cousins too. When the kids come to Quilt Day with us, if they ask to sew or to do something, we let them. Usually their interests dies. They don't sit down and sew all day. It's a nice break. I would say when we're at Quilt Day, if one of the kids wants to sew something, you just pause and you show them a few things. Then they're off doing another thing. Over the past couple of weeks me and my youngest have been trying our hand at making some masks. He's interested in what I'm doing. When we're in a big group, he'll come in and sew for three or four minutes and then he'll go off and he'll go do something else. He'll pop in and out. He's interested.
HAVE YOU EVER SEWN OR QUILTED WITH PEOPLE WHO AREN'T IN YOUR FAMILY?
YES, BUT THEY ARE ALWAYS CLOSE FAMILY FRIENDS. SOMETIMES WHEN OUR FAMILY SHARES THAT WE GET TOGETHER AND DO THE QUILT DAY, OCCASIONALLY OTHER PEOPLE WILL BE INTERESTED. WE'LL EXTEND THE INVITATION. SOME PEOPLE COME ONLY ONCE. SOME PEOPLE COME MORE REGULARLY AND THEN SLOWLY THEY START TO FEEL LIKE FAMILY. THEY'RE NOT, BUT IT JUST WORKS.
It's always a pretty intimate group. We talk about a lot of things, not just sewing. We talk about funny things, talk about sad things. We talk about health things. It's very diverse age group of ladies that get together. I feel like there's always somebody who's experienced something. I know sometimes we talk about finances, we talk about cooking, we share recipes, share books, ideas, just whatever is on anybody's mind. Whatever anybody wants to share, we share. Sometimes if somebody is new to the group, especially if they're not family, we joke and say we try to mind our manners and not talk about super personal things when we're in mixed company. But usually, the new people to the group are few and far between. But it's not for lack of inviting people to come.
Yeah, that makes sense. You said that mostly you learned when you were a kid and your family members taught you. Then whenever you have a question you can just go to this sewing circle and you'll get a bunch of different answers.
DO YOU FIND THAT MOST OF YOUR LEARNING IN THIS HAS BEEN PERSON-TO-PERSON, OR DO YOU EVER SEEK OUT FORMAL LEARNING FOR HOW TO DO THESE THINGS?
IT'S BEEN 100% PERSON TO PERSON.
I kind of get overwhelmed when I read. I've never tried to sew clothes or anything like that. I can mend clothes. I can hem a pair of pants. I can sew on a button. I can mend holes if they're in seams. But I've never tried to make a garment, cause sometimes I get intimidated about patterns. I just don't give myself enough patience to sit down and try to figure it out. I stick with what I know so far. But I will say because we can't get together for Quilt Day, we're sharing things. We have a Facebook group that we started. Ironically, we started it about six months ago because I wanted to be able to collect images from our days and I felt like we were posting things on our normal Facebook pages, but they just kind of get lost. They're not grouped together. We started this page to kind of group our things together. We had been sharing a lot about different patterns and people making masks. Some people have had requests for hair caps for nurses and things to wear in the hospital. There've been a couple of patterns that we've shared. To be honest, I was really intimidated by it for the first couple of weeks when we were quarantined. Just the other night, there was something where I was like, ''I'm going to try it. It was the first time I'd ever watched YouTube videos to help me learn.
I'M USED TO THAT PERSON-TO-PERSON INTERACTION. I PRINTED OUT A COUPLE PATTERNS AND DIRECTIONS. READING THEM JUST GIVE ME ANXIETY. I DON'T ALWAYS KNOW WHAT ALL THE TERMS ARE. BUT IF SOMEBODY SHOWS ME, I'M LIKE, 'OH I CAN DO THAT'. SO I DECIDED TO FIND SOME VIDEOS AND THAT REALLY HELPED ME A LOT. I MADE ONE PROTOTYPE OF A MASK AND IT WAS THE WRONG FABRIC. BUT AT LEAST I FIGURED OUT THAT I COULD FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS AND I COULD MAKE ONE. NOW I'M TRYING TO GO THROUGH THE HOUSE AND FIND THE APPROPRIATE FABRIC THAT THEY'RE SAYING TO MAKE THESE OUT OF. SEEING WHAT I'VE GOT ON HAND, I CAN MAKE A FEW.
I won't be able to make a lot. One of my aunts in our quilt group has made over a hundred masks already. One of her daughters works in a nursing home, so she's sending them to that nursing home staff and spreading them out that way. That was probably my motivation too. I'm not having to leave the house, so I don't feel like I need a mask right now. But I was talking to one of my clients on the phone the other day and she was really nervous. She had to go out to run some errands and she was really nervous because she didn't have a mask. We were just casually talking about it at the end of the meeting. She was like, 'I don't have any of the supplies. I don't even have scissors to cut fabric. I just really don't have the skills to do it'. So she was talking about just using a scarf wrapped around her face, which probably would work fine. But I ended up telling her, I was like, 'Oh, I know how to sew. I think I could make you a mask'. And of course she got super excited. When we hung up I was like, 'Oh my gosh, now I have to make a mask'. I think I needed that motivation. I needed that personal connection of somebody needing something from me. I knew enough that I did believe that I could do it, but because I had not ever done anything like this, I was definitely intimidated by it. The YouTube video definitely helped that. I enjoyed that.
That's really awesome. You got that motivation to push you into learning this new skill. That's really interesting that's how it played out. One question that I'm asking everyone who's involved with this project is 'what would you define as your community?' Is it a geographic location? Is that a group of people who share certain values? What do you think that is for you?
It probably is just a group of people that share similar values. Where they live doesn't make that big of a difference anymore. I do think back in the day it definitely did.
NOW MOST OF MY FAMILY LIVES RELATIVELY CLOSE TO ONE ANOTHER. SOME OF US ARE HALF HOUR TO AN HOUR AWAY FROM EACH OTHER. USUALLY IF WE DON'T GET TOGETHER FOR QUILT DAY, I DON'T SEE SOME OF THESE FAMILY MEMBERS UNTIL THANKSGIVING OR CHRISTMAS. IT'S NICE TO BE ABLE TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH THEM THAT WAY.
I've got several cousins that are younger than me. Ironically they are all living in different States because their husbands are in the military. We'll use FaceTime. We'd never used Zoom before, but we're supposed to have Quilt Day next weekend. We were all talking about doing it on Zoom. We had skipped in March for obvious reasons. I feel like the technology now removes a barrier that people have to be in the same vicinity, let alone the same house to be able to share something like this. I'm excited to try Zoom with the group. Normally it's a whole day when we get together. It usually starts at 10, people start to pack up and head home about three o'clock. We do a potluck lunch or sometimes we'll order in a pizza, something easy for lunch. But I don't know if the Zoom one will last that long because that could be a little tiring. It'd be interesting to see how it goes. At the very least we talked about just all sharing our progress- where we got with some of our quilts. If somebody was having a problem we could get ask each other some tips and tricks and call it a day.
That's awesome. I love that instead of your community pausing, it's continuing in this different form. That's really wonderful. My last question for you is: for what occasions do you make things? You said you started this first quote and you made it by hand, but since then you've started a couple more. Do you just do it because something inspires you? Do you make them as gifts for certain events? What is it that triggers that for you?
So far I've kept every quilt that I've made. I'm not to a point yet where I feel like I could part with them. I've put so much time into them. But that's probably where it's headed. Most of the people in my family get to a point where they just have an abundance of quilts. It really is selfish to keep them all.
MY GRANDMOTHER, ONE CHRISTMAS, GAVE ALL OF HER GRANDKIDS A QUILT AND SHE WAITED UNTIL SHE HAD ENOUGH TO GIVE US ALL ONE AT THE SAME TIME INSTEAD OF A COUPLE EACH YEAR. SHE SAID SHE DID THAT SO THAT SHE WOULD MAKE SURE THAT EVERYBODY GOT ONE AND THAT NOBODY GOT LEFT OUT. SHE KEPT THEM ALL THOSE YEARS. THAT WAS A REALLY FUN CHRISTMAS AND WE ALL GOT ONE FROM HER. SHE'S GONE. SHE'S BEEN GONE FOR MANY YEARS. SO THAT'S VERY SPECIAL.
My mom has always made baby quilts for all of our kids. My boys still have their baby quilts. Eventually I will get to the point where my quilts will become gifts for people. Baby quilts seeing like the norm. Almost every time we get together somebody is making a baby quilt in our quilt group.
That's definitely a popular occasion to give a quilt. It's a really lovely way to welcome a new member of the family. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate everything that you've shared with me today. Is there anything else that you would like to get down on the record about your experience in this community?
MY SISTER RECENTLY SHARED AT QUILT DAY THAT SHE WAS READING A BOOK. I DON'T REMEMBER THE NAME OF IT NOW. IT HAD A QUILTING THEME IN IT AND IT WAS CONNECTED TO THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD. WE'VE HAD A LOT OF CONVERSATIONS ABOUT HOW QUILTS WERE USED FOR STORYTELLING AND TO GIVE DIRECTIONS TO PEOPLE- ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY COULDN'T READ. IN AND OF ITSELF, THAT'S A PRETTY AMAZING STORY. IT INTERESTS ME. IT SPARKED US ALL.
We've done field trips sometimes for our quilt group. We had talked about taking a field trip to the freedom center because we have heard that there are quilts there from the underground railroad. My youngest son is adopted from Ethiopia. So it kind of has a different level of meaning of just understanding black heritage. And I know he's from Ethiopia, but it's just interesting to think about the different cultural ways. The ways that my family grew up learning about quilting versus how other people in America grew up with quilts in their life. I just think it's a fascinating topic.
That's definitely true. I recently read a book called Hidden in Plain View. It is a whole book just about the story of quilts and the underground railroad. It's got all these diagrams about which different patterns left different indications for slaves to follow. So that's definitely a rich history that is just so fascinating.
My sister, when she found that book, we've been kind of researching it to see what other books were like it. I don't enjoy reading sadly. But I think that I would like a book like that. I think it would keep my interest. When she started researching it, she was like, 'Oh my gosh, there are a lot of books on this' and just quilting in general. My aunt went to her cabinet and she pulled out like four novels that were about quilting or had quilting as part of the book theme. That was new to me. I'd never really read much about quilts. I've only seen quilt books that had patterns in them and directions. Not a story.
It's a really fascinating history of folk art. It's this oral tradition of storytelling.
One of the stories that I shared with people at work- we have an artifact wall. They're just little five by five canvases and everybody had to put an artifact that symbolized a truth for them in their life. I picked a leather thimble for my artifact. When everybody hung them we had to tell our story. I picked the thimble because, over the years, metaphorically the value that I used was protection. Life is not always pleasant. Sometimes you want to stop in the middle. Thinking about the middle of my Christmas Forever Quilt, it's never going to be done. You kind of want to stop and, and then you'll pick it back up another day. When I first started using a thimble, they all felt awkward and they weren't comfortable. So when we would go to Quilt Day people would share their thimbles with me. I would try different ones.
Sheila Lewis. My coworker Bryn knows you and she had heard about your project and I had shared a little bit about my quilting and family tradition at work. She saw the connection and asked me if I would be interested in helping you.
That's awesome. So tell us a little bit about your family tradition.
FOR AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER, SINCE I WAS LITTLE, MY FAMILY HAS ALWAYS SEWN AROUND ME.
My grandmother was a seamstress and shop manager. I remember visiting her. Now I know it was kind of like a sweat shop, but they made hospital gowns for the local hospitals. Of course we always sewed and did things at home. My grandmother taught my mom and her sister how to sew and that tradition got passed down. My early memories were probably first or second grade. That was my first quilt project. My mom taught me how to make a quilt for one of my baby dolls. The other memorable memory that I have is that we were snowed in one winter. I have three sisters, and we were all sewing in the living room. We had finished for the day and I was on the floor picking up all the thread scraps out of the carpet while my mom was fixing dinner. I was scooting on my knees across the carpet and I remembered feeling of a prick in my knee. When I looked, I had a needle that was sticking out of my jeans. I took it to my mom and I told her what had happened and she looked at it and she noticed that the whole needle wasn't there. We were looking in my pant leg and we didn't see anything. We could see a little prick in my knee, but it did not look dramatic or anything like that. The next morning when I woke up, my knee was swollen like four times its size and was very hot and red. Of course she took me to the doctor. I had a needle that had went all the way into my bone in my knee. I ended up having to get it surgically removed. That's one of my favorite stories from when I was younger. It's one of my favorite stories to tell about sewing. Luckily it didn't dissuade me from continuing. But I will admit that while I was a teenager, I didn't really think it was the most cool thing to be doing with my family. But my mom was always sewing and she made some dresses for me for special events at school. She made one of my older sister's wedding dresses. She swore she would never do that again cause it had a lot of beads and a very intricate design. But mostly her favorite pastime was quilting. And she was a master seamstress. She would do clothes and she would do alterations for people in the community. She never owned a business doing it. It was something she just did for people. Sometimes as favors. Sometimes they would pay her to hem pants or to take in clothes and things of that nature. As she got older, she started to teach at our local Four H center. I don't know if every state has this, but Kentucky has home extension offices where you can go and you can learn home economic things. Things from gardening, to taking care of livestock, to sewing, to cooking, to canning. The list goes on and on. It's an enrichment program for communities. She taught there for many, many years. I didn't get back into quilting until I was in college. I started a quilt that I'm still finishing- and I've been out of college for over 20 years. My mom insisted that my first big quilt I should do all by hand. After that I could use the sewing machine. She really valued quilts that are done by hand. She would teach us things about how it raises the value of a quilt if you can see that it's been done by hand. That one is still a work in progress. I am getting closer to the end. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Our quarantine has given me more time to work on it. I'm hoping that I can get it done this year.
MY FAMILY STARTED DOING QUILT DAYS. WE TRY TO GET TOGETHER ONCE A MONTH AND WE ROTATE HOUSES. USUALLY THERE'S ABOUT FIVE TO EIGHT OF US THAT COME. ON THE INVITATION LIST, THERE'S PROBABLY UPWARDS OF 15 OR SO PEOPLE.
Not everybody can come every month. We just get together. We've never done anything like a quilting bee where we've all quilted on the same quilt. We talk about it. We wish that we could, but we don't have a hoop big enough to able to do that. But nonetheless, it has a very similar feeling. We'll all sit in somebody's living room or in their kitchen and we'll each work on our own project. We could be at different stages of the process. Sometimes people bring different projects. Not all of them are quilting. Sometimes it's cross-stitch or it could be mending clothes. One of my sisters is a teacher, so some days she comes and brings her papers that she has to grade for school.
IT REALLY IS JUST THE TIME THAT WE CAN HANG OUT AND BE TOGETHER. IT'S NOT REALLY IMPORTANT WHETHER OR NOT YOU'RE SEWING. FOR ME IT IS A GREAT TIME TO GAIN SOME CONFIDENCE AND TO LEARN NEW THINGS ABOUT HOW TO SEW WELL. IT IS NICE TO HAVE SOMEBODY RIGHT THERE NEXT TO YOU WHEN YOU GET STUCK OR WHEN YOU'RE LIKE, 'I'M NOT SURE WHAT TO DO HERE'. YOU CAN GET THE OPINIONS OF EVERYBODY IN THE ROOM.
One of the things that I'm learning, and that I love, is there are lots of different ways to do the same thing. It's kind of like a round robin when somebody has a question. Lots of people chime in and they're like, 'Oh, I would never do it that way. I only do it this way or I prefer do it this way'. At the end of the day you try a couple of different suggestions from some people and you figure out which one feels right for you. That has given me more confidence. When I'm at home sewing alone and I'm stuck I'm like, 'man, I'm just going to try something' if it doesn't work, my seam ripper is my best friend. Take it out and try again.
For this ongoing quilt, are you doing all the piecing by hand and the quilting by hand?
Correct. Yeah, the top has been pieced for many, many years and I really got stuck when it came to quilting. Just because it's very tedious. I think it was also probably the time in my life too. I was recently married, started having kids, so projects like that just got put onto the wayside. I recently picked it back up and started to finish it. I think I'll be finished it this year. I'm kind of halfway through quilting it at the moment. I have done other quilts since then. My mom only required that I hand-do one. I'm learning that it's very normal for quilters to have many projects going at the same time because they can get tedious as you're working on them, and a little boring. Sometimes looking at the same fabric or the same pattern all the time, especially if you're doing a larger quilt, gets boring. It's nice to have some variety and have a couple projects going. I've done a couple of quilts in my lifetime. I think three finished, and I have two in the works.
That's awesome. What patterns have your quilts been?
One of my favorites that I did we decided to redo it as a group. My quilt that I started in college and am still not done with, I'm not sure exactly what the pattern is called. I call it my Christmas quilt because I picked red, green and white fabric. But I don't remember what the pattern was that I picked for it. It has triangles and squares in it. It's a nine patch with the squares on the corners. I'm not sure what that would be called. Also we did what we call a 'no-peak-nine-patch quilt'. We did that the first time many, many years ago. Everybody brought scrap fabric cut to size into squares. We put it all into a laundry basket and we mixed it up. By the handfuls you would grab out three or four handfuls of fabric and we put them into brown paper bags. Then everybody picked a paper bag. Why we like it is that sometimes the hardest part about quilting is trying to create a pleasing pattern. That can be very intimidating sometimes. The method for this no-peak-nine-patch is you just reach your hand in the bag, you pick up two squares, and you sew them together. We laugh because we say that the rule is you're not allowed to put a square back and pick another one. Whatever two you match up have to be sewn together. We've got some cheaters in the group- they like to sneak some back in the pile if they don't like them or if they end up picking up two squares that are the exact same pattern. Sometimes they'll put one back and grab a new one just to try to avoid some awkwardness in the pattern. But really it doesn't matter. Even if you have two blocks of the same fabric sewn together in the end they look beautiful. In the minute when you're sewing a couple of these blocks together, you think there is no way this is going to work. The colors are crazy, the patterns are so disparate. But when you get it put together, it has a really old fashioned look to it.
WE WERE ALWAYS TOLD STORIES ABOUT BACK IN THE DAY. YOU DIDN'T NECESSARILY GO TO THE FABRIC STORE TO BUY YOUR FAVORITE FABRIC. YOU USED OLD CLOTHES AND WHAT YOU HAD. SO ACTUALLY MATCHING FABRIC UP TO GET A MORE PLEASING OVERALL PATTERN OR DESIGN IS A VERY MODERN THING.
So we like no-peak-nine-patches. The first time we did that, we were also doing a jean quilt project on that Quilt Day. I was still very young and I had gotten behind on both projects. To help myself get a little bit further along, I decided to mix the two. I did my no-peak-nine-patch in the center of my jean quilt and I picked a log cabin pattern for the jean fabric.
WHY DO YOU THINK THAT YOU KEPT DOING IT FOR SO LONG?
PROBABLY BECAUSE IT IS ALWAYS AROUND ME. MY GRANDMOTHER ALWAYS HAD A SEWING ROOM. MY MOM HAS A SEWING ROOM. MY AUNT HAS A SEWING ROOM. MY SISTERS AND I, I WOULD SAY WE HAVE THE BEGINNINGS OF A SEWING ROOM. BUT WHEN I SAY THAT MY MOM OR MY AUNT OR MY GRANDMA HAD SEWING ROOMS, IT LOOKED LIKE YOU WERE WALKING INTO A QUILT SHOP.
I was over there a couple months ago before the quarantine and I had told her that my sewing needle had broke and that I was going to have to stop at Walmart and buy some new ones. And she was like, 'Oh no, no, don't do that cause I've got plenty'. She pulls out this big plastic box that is full of sewing machine needles. She was like, 'what size do you need?' It was all organized. Holy cow. That is amazing. So any time that any of us need supplies, we go to her first before we go to the fabric store just because she just has so much. It's kind of a running joke that you never throw away fabric. Even if the pieces are small, you keep everything. Which I struggle with because I'm not generally that type of person. But I have seen them make some beautiful things out of these really small pieces that can be leftover from things.
THEIR QUILT ROOMS- THEY SIT IN THEM AND THEY SEW. THEY ARE JUST SURROUNDED BY SO MANY SUPPLIES. AN ENDLESS AMOUNT. THEY COULD PROBABLY DO ANY CRAFT OR PROJECT AT THE DROP OF A HAT WITHOUT HAVING TO GO TO THE STORE. SOMETIMES THEY STILL DO, BECAUSE THEY CAN'T FIND WHAT THEY'RE LOOKING FOR.
They're like, 'I'm just going to go buy some more. It's in here somewhere, but I can't find it'. They keep their rooms really organized. They're not hoarding rooms. They're kind of pleasant to sin. They feel very warm and cozy. To quilt and to do projects like this, you need task lighting. So the lighting's in the room are kind of warm and it's just inviting. It's just comforting.
That's lovely. Is this a skill that you've started to teach to your children?
Yeah. My oldest is 16. I have two boys, so they're not really into sewing. When they were little, when we would go to Quilt Day, they would always tag along with me. My mom is a very patient teacher, and my aunts and a couple of my other cousins too. When the kids come to Quilt Day with us, if they ask to sew or to do something, we let them. Usually their interests dies. They don't sit down and sew all day. It's a nice break. I would say when we're at Quilt Day, if one of the kids wants to sew something, you just pause and you show them a few things. Then they're off doing another thing. Over the past couple of weeks me and my youngest have been trying our hand at making some masks. He's interested in what I'm doing. When we're in a big group, he'll come in and sew for three or four minutes and then he'll go off and he'll go do something else. He'll pop in and out. He's interested.
HAVE YOU EVER SEWN OR QUILTED WITH PEOPLE WHO AREN'T IN YOUR FAMILY?
YES, BUT THEY ARE ALWAYS CLOSE FAMILY FRIENDS. SOMETIMES WHEN OUR FAMILY SHARES THAT WE GET TOGETHER AND DO THE QUILT DAY, OCCASIONALLY OTHER PEOPLE WILL BE INTERESTED. WE'LL EXTEND THE INVITATION. SOME PEOPLE COME ONLY ONCE. SOME PEOPLE COME MORE REGULARLY AND THEN SLOWLY THEY START TO FEEL LIKE FAMILY. THEY'RE NOT, BUT IT JUST WORKS.
It's always a pretty intimate group. We talk about a lot of things, not just sewing. We talk about funny things, talk about sad things. We talk about health things. It's very diverse age group of ladies that get together. I feel like there's always somebody who's experienced something. I know sometimes we talk about finances, we talk about cooking, we share recipes, share books, ideas, just whatever is on anybody's mind. Whatever anybody wants to share, we share. Sometimes if somebody is new to the group, especially if they're not family, we joke and say we try to mind our manners and not talk about super personal things when we're in mixed company. But usually, the new people to the group are few and far between. But it's not for lack of inviting people to come.
Yeah, that makes sense. You said that mostly you learned when you were a kid and your family members taught you. Then whenever you have a question you can just go to this sewing circle and you'll get a bunch of different answers.
DO YOU FIND THAT MOST OF YOUR LEARNING IN THIS HAS BEEN PERSON-TO-PERSON, OR DO YOU EVER SEEK OUT FORMAL LEARNING FOR HOW TO DO THESE THINGS?
IT'S BEEN 100% PERSON TO PERSON.
I kind of get overwhelmed when I read. I've never tried to sew clothes or anything like that. I can mend clothes. I can hem a pair of pants. I can sew on a button. I can mend holes if they're in seams. But I've never tried to make a garment, cause sometimes I get intimidated about patterns. I just don't give myself enough patience to sit down and try to figure it out. I stick with what I know so far. But I will say because we can't get together for Quilt Day, we're sharing things. We have a Facebook group that we started. Ironically, we started it about six months ago because I wanted to be able to collect images from our days and I felt like we were posting things on our normal Facebook pages, but they just kind of get lost. They're not grouped together. We started this page to kind of group our things together. We had been sharing a lot about different patterns and people making masks. Some people have had requests for hair caps for nurses and things to wear in the hospital. There've been a couple of patterns that we've shared. To be honest, I was really intimidated by it for the first couple of weeks when we were quarantined. Just the other night, there was something where I was like, ''I'm going to try it. It was the first time I'd ever watched YouTube videos to help me learn.
I'M USED TO THAT PERSON-TO-PERSON INTERACTION. I PRINTED OUT A COUPLE PATTERNS AND DIRECTIONS. READING THEM JUST GIVE ME ANXIETY. I DON'T ALWAYS KNOW WHAT ALL THE TERMS ARE. BUT IF SOMEBODY SHOWS ME, I'M LIKE, 'OH I CAN DO THAT'. SO I DECIDED TO FIND SOME VIDEOS AND THAT REALLY HELPED ME A LOT. I MADE ONE PROTOTYPE OF A MASK AND IT WAS THE WRONG FABRIC. BUT AT LEAST I FIGURED OUT THAT I COULD FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS AND I COULD MAKE ONE. NOW I'M TRYING TO GO THROUGH THE HOUSE AND FIND THE APPROPRIATE FABRIC THAT THEY'RE SAYING TO MAKE THESE OUT OF. SEEING WHAT I'VE GOT ON HAND, I CAN MAKE A FEW.
I won't be able to make a lot. One of my aunts in our quilt group has made over a hundred masks already. One of her daughters works in a nursing home, so she's sending them to that nursing home staff and spreading them out that way. That was probably my motivation too. I'm not having to leave the house, so I don't feel like I need a mask right now. But I was talking to one of my clients on the phone the other day and she was really nervous. She had to go out to run some errands and she was really nervous because she didn't have a mask. We were just casually talking about it at the end of the meeting. She was like, 'I don't have any of the supplies. I don't even have scissors to cut fabric. I just really don't have the skills to do it'. So she was talking about just using a scarf wrapped around her face, which probably would work fine. But I ended up telling her, I was like, 'Oh, I know how to sew. I think I could make you a mask'. And of course she got super excited. When we hung up I was like, 'Oh my gosh, now I have to make a mask'. I think I needed that motivation. I needed that personal connection of somebody needing something from me. I knew enough that I did believe that I could do it, but because I had not ever done anything like this, I was definitely intimidated by it. The YouTube video definitely helped that. I enjoyed that.
That's really awesome. You got that motivation to push you into learning this new skill. That's really interesting that's how it played out. One question that I'm asking everyone who's involved with this project is 'what would you define as your community?' Is it a geographic location? Is that a group of people who share certain values? What do you think that is for you?
It probably is just a group of people that share similar values. Where they live doesn't make that big of a difference anymore. I do think back in the day it definitely did.
NOW MOST OF MY FAMILY LIVES RELATIVELY CLOSE TO ONE ANOTHER. SOME OF US ARE HALF HOUR TO AN HOUR AWAY FROM EACH OTHER. USUALLY IF WE DON'T GET TOGETHER FOR QUILT DAY, I DON'T SEE SOME OF THESE FAMILY MEMBERS UNTIL THANKSGIVING OR CHRISTMAS. IT'S NICE TO BE ABLE TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH THEM THAT WAY.
I've got several cousins that are younger than me. Ironically they are all living in different States because their husbands are in the military. We'll use FaceTime. We'd never used Zoom before, but we're supposed to have Quilt Day next weekend. We were all talking about doing it on Zoom. We had skipped in March for obvious reasons. I feel like the technology now removes a barrier that people have to be in the same vicinity, let alone the same house to be able to share something like this. I'm excited to try Zoom with the group. Normally it's a whole day when we get together. It usually starts at 10, people start to pack up and head home about three o'clock. We do a potluck lunch or sometimes we'll order in a pizza, something easy for lunch. But I don't know if the Zoom one will last that long because that could be a little tiring. It'd be interesting to see how it goes. At the very least we talked about just all sharing our progress- where we got with some of our quilts. If somebody was having a problem we could get ask each other some tips and tricks and call it a day.
That's awesome. I love that instead of your community pausing, it's continuing in this different form. That's really wonderful. My last question for you is: for what occasions do you make things? You said you started this first quote and you made it by hand, but since then you've started a couple more. Do you just do it because something inspires you? Do you make them as gifts for certain events? What is it that triggers that for you?
So far I've kept every quilt that I've made. I'm not to a point yet where I feel like I could part with them. I've put so much time into them. But that's probably where it's headed. Most of the people in my family get to a point where they just have an abundance of quilts. It really is selfish to keep them all.
MY GRANDMOTHER, ONE CHRISTMAS, GAVE ALL OF HER GRANDKIDS A QUILT AND SHE WAITED UNTIL SHE HAD ENOUGH TO GIVE US ALL ONE AT THE SAME TIME INSTEAD OF A COUPLE EACH YEAR. SHE SAID SHE DID THAT SO THAT SHE WOULD MAKE SURE THAT EVERYBODY GOT ONE AND THAT NOBODY GOT LEFT OUT. SHE KEPT THEM ALL THOSE YEARS. THAT WAS A REALLY FUN CHRISTMAS AND WE ALL GOT ONE FROM HER. SHE'S GONE. SHE'S BEEN GONE FOR MANY YEARS. SO THAT'S VERY SPECIAL.
My mom has always made baby quilts for all of our kids. My boys still have their baby quilts. Eventually I will get to the point where my quilts will become gifts for people. Baby quilts seeing like the norm. Almost every time we get together somebody is making a baby quilt in our quilt group.
That's definitely a popular occasion to give a quilt. It's a really lovely way to welcome a new member of the family. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate everything that you've shared with me today. Is there anything else that you would like to get down on the record about your experience in this community?
MY SISTER RECENTLY SHARED AT QUILT DAY THAT SHE WAS READING A BOOK. I DON'T REMEMBER THE NAME OF IT NOW. IT HAD A QUILTING THEME IN IT AND IT WAS CONNECTED TO THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD. WE'VE HAD A LOT OF CONVERSATIONS ABOUT HOW QUILTS WERE USED FOR STORYTELLING AND TO GIVE DIRECTIONS TO PEOPLE- ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY COULDN'T READ. IN AND OF ITSELF, THAT'S A PRETTY AMAZING STORY. IT INTERESTS ME. IT SPARKED US ALL.
We've done field trips sometimes for our quilt group. We had talked about taking a field trip to the freedom center because we have heard that there are quilts there from the underground railroad. My youngest son is adopted from Ethiopia. So it kind of has a different level of meaning of just understanding black heritage. And I know he's from Ethiopia, but it's just interesting to think about the different cultural ways. The ways that my family grew up learning about quilting versus how other people in America grew up with quilts in their life. I just think it's a fascinating topic.
That's definitely true. I recently read a book called Hidden in Plain View. It is a whole book just about the story of quilts and the underground railroad. It's got all these diagrams about which different patterns left different indications for slaves to follow. So that's definitely a rich history that is just so fascinating.
My sister, when she found that book, we've been kind of researching it to see what other books were like it. I don't enjoy reading sadly. But I think that I would like a book like that. I think it would keep my interest. When she started researching it, she was like, 'Oh my gosh, there are a lot of books on this' and just quilting in general. My aunt went to her cabinet and she pulled out like four novels that were about quilting or had quilting as part of the book theme. That was new to me. I'd never really read much about quilts. I've only seen quilt books that had patterns in them and directions. Not a story.
It's a really fascinating history of folk art. It's this oral tradition of storytelling.
One of the stories that I shared with people at work- we have an artifact wall. They're just little five by five canvases and everybody had to put an artifact that symbolized a truth for them in their life. I picked a leather thimble for my artifact. When everybody hung them we had to tell our story. I picked the thimble because, over the years, metaphorically the value that I used was protection. Life is not always pleasant. Sometimes you want to stop in the middle. Thinking about the middle of my Christmas Forever Quilt, it's never going to be done. You kind of want to stop and, and then you'll pick it back up another day. When I first started using a thimble, they all felt awkward and they weren't comfortable. So when we would go to Quilt Day people would share their thimbles with me. I would try different ones.