Episode 030: In Which We Save Our Stories
Nov 19th, 2010 by quilter
I was so happy to have the chance to meet and talk with Amy Milne, executive director of The Alliance for American Quilts, about the AAQ's "Quilter' S.O.S.--Save Our Stories" project. This is a great oral history documentation project capturing thousands of quilters stories; sort of my "quilters like the rest of us" interviews on steroids! I loved having this conversation and I'm sure you'll love meeting and listening to Amy as well.
For more information about The Alliance for American Quilts, visit www.allianceforamericanquilts.org.
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http://www.quiltindex.org/news/
This is the link I loaded to my Google Reader… is this the link you were talking about?
I have not yet documented / labeled several of my quilt. I think I will make it a priority. I have one quilt with 300 family pictures on it. I made it for my mom after my dad passed. That quilt definitely needs to be documented and labeled.
http://www.allianceforamericanquilts.org/
http://www.allianceforamericanquilts.org/qsos/ Save our stories…
Nonnie
http://nonniequiltingdreams.wordpress.com/
Hey Sandy,
Just listened to your podcast while hand sewing the binding on a quilt I started over a year ago. Thanks so much for doing the podcast and for the regularity of your posts. I always enjoy them. You are quite a good and thoughtful interviewer. Hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving with just the perfect balance of family, eating, and quilting time!
Hi Sandy–thanks so much for interviewing me! And I believe it was Alice Helms who connected you to me and the Alliance for American Quilts. She is a fellow Ashevillian and a Q.S.O.S. volunteer. Thanks, Alice!!
Hi Sandy, It might have been I who had suggested that you contact QSOS (the email was back in May!!) I was honored to have the opportunity to participate in this project. Back in 2003, I needed to complete one interview for the History of Quilt course I was taking and I chose to interview Zylpha Siudara. She is such very lovely quilter (now in her nineties), who is well known for her appliquéd story quilts, which she created based on old fairy tales. I was so nervous; as Zylpha has been published in several quilt magazines and was on Alex Anderson’s TV show. She was famous!! But she made the interview so easy and such a great experience, that I decided to complete the project, transcribe the interview and see if the Alliance would accept it for the QSOS. They did! You can read the interview at: http://www.allianceforamericanquilts.org/qsos/interview.php?kid=14-31-1DF
I would strongly suggest to anyone interested in participating, it is worthwhile. After all, today’s quiltmakers are tomorrow’s history of this rich quilt heritage that we all have an interest in! Doing podcasts and interviews is just another way to do your part in keeping this tradition viable for future quilters & historians! Beth
Hi Sandy, I love your podcast, it’s my very favorite. I especially liked this one about saving our stories. I am very serious about sewing a label on anything I make because this hits very close to home. My great grandmother was a quilter, and though she lived until I was 25 years old, I saw very few of her quilts because she kept them put up to “take care of them”. My grandmother, her only daughter, cared nothing about quilts. After my great grandmother died in 1986 my grandmother sold “all those old quilts” to an antique dealer for $100. My mother and 1 of my sisters are quilters and would have loved to had any of her quilts. Because I do not want this to happen to my own quilts, I label every one of them, and even though my daughter is not a quilter, I have expressed to her and my grandchildren how important my quilts are to me. I am also happy to give a quilt to someone close to me that I know will care for it, while I am alive and well and can make sure they get good homes.
Hi Sandy,
A couple of years ago, I bought the Quilt Album software you mentioned. It really does work well! I’m still in the process of adding all of my quilts to it, though I haven’t really felt rushed to do so since I also keep a “record” of them on my main website (as opposed to my blog). It’s very easy to add all of the information you want to keep, as well as dragging photos into the right spots. I haven’t tried to print out things like cards, but I have printed out summaries for reference. I’d recommend it for anyone who wants to keep a computerized record of their quilts.
Another fun podcast! I haven’t labeled my quilts before, but I plan to now. I have 2 quilts from my grandmother and wish I would have had the details and her thoughts about them when she made them. I’ll try to remember that when I make my quilts.