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www.QuiltAlliance.org
eBurst  November 21 2012   
Thanks in Word and Stitch

  

The Quilt Alliance board and staff would like send our thanks to each of you: our founders, our members and volunteers, our partners and sponsors and all those who use and contribute to our projects. Your passion for the history of quilts, the stories of their makers, and the preservation of both, fuels our mission. Your support sustains our operations. Thank you!

 

I searched The Quilt Index (a joint project of the Alliance, the Michigan State University Museum, and MATRIX: The Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online at MSU ) and Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories projects to collect a few excerpts and quilt images that express thanksgiving. The gratitude expressed in these quilts and quotes say it all. In making and giving, receiving and using, and passing on to the next generation, quilts give us so much. They comfort, honor, memorialize, inspire and heal, and for this we are grateful.

 

Excerpts from The Quilt Index: 

QuiltIndex_PhyllisLarson
Nine Patch Baby Quilt by Phyllis Larson

Phyllis Larson of Tulsa, Oklahoma, made this baby quilt in her late seventies to donate to a charity supporting premature infants and their families. She made over 20 quilts a month for this program. She is remembered by her daughter Dr. Lora Larson who documented her quilt in the Quilt Index.  

She was beautiful, smart, creative, enthusiastic; a gypsy by nature and a Mom to the end. She was our best friend and we will all miss her, but we are so thankful for the wonderful life she got to live.

QI_KarenLoprete
I'm Still Growing by Karen Loprete

Karen Loprete or Shelton, Connecticut, made this small quilt titled "I'm Still Growing" in 2008 for the Alliance contest "My Quilts/ Our History."  

Her artist's statement:

After being struck with multiple sclerosis, I grew more tired with every passing year, and less and less likely to hold a position in the workforce, let alone get around anywhere much. What has remained with me is my creative energy. I hope that this quilt reflects how my creative energy has been growing and celebrating! I'm thankful every day that I have my many-colored fabrics and notions waiting for me to speak through them.


QI_ThankfulCheckerboard
 

This Checkerboard Four Patch was hand pieced and quilted by Mary Thankful Wheeler of Pinedale, Wyoming. Mary's name says it all.   

 

 

QI_MedaAlmiraFonger
Grandmother's Flower Garden by Meda Almira Fonger
Meda Almira Fonger hand pieced and quilted this Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt in the 1950's. The grateful family member who inherited it was her great-granddaughter, who wrote in this record:  

 

I wonder if she felt like I do, that quilting fills that need in me to do something creative. Its something all my own that gives me personal satisfaction apart from my life as a wife and mother. I'm grateful for the legacy of quilts she left me. I wish she had signed them, but I will do it for her, so her name Meda Fonger will be there for my grandchildren to see. I'm very thankful that I've got quilting in my blood from her. I think she'd be very happy to see her great-granddaughter continuing where she left off!


Excerpts from Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories

 

All of the interviews excerpted below were conducted by longtime Q.S.O.S. volunteer Karen Musgrave between 2007-2009. We are so grateful to Karen for giving her passion and talent and time to build this unique oral history collection.

 

QSOS_NinoChargaishvili
Quilt by Nino Chargaishvili interviewed by Karen Musgrave for The Republic of Georgia Q.S.O.S. subproject in Tbilisi, Georgi, 2007

Thanks for community

KM: So tell me about your feelings about the quilt group that you belong to.

NC: Even before the quilt group, we were very close friends but here I found new friends, more friends. It took me time to come to the group but when I started it was--I met new people and I was very happy. It was pleasure to me. I found a new world. The relations are so much more interesting than everything else. I am so thankful.

 

 

QSOS_AngelesSegura
Angeles Segura interviewed by Karen Musgrave for the Los hilos de la vida Q.S.O.S. subproject in Boonville, California, sponsored by The Salser Family Foundation, 2007.

 

Thanks for opportunity

KM: I think you should keep working, because I think it will get better and better and better. How did you end up in Boonville, California? 


AS: Always I am a person who likes to improve my life, looking for something to build a home, a walls, but here in the valley it is difficult but I'm very thankful of my school because they teach me, they help me improve learning the English, getting my GED, getting my diploma and this kind of quilts, and professional or something. I'm not a teacher. I'm not a secretary, but I would like to be something else.

 

 

 

 

 

  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

QSOS_RhondaEdwards
Rhonda Edwards interviewed by Karen Musgrave for The Ohio Reformatory for Women Q.S.O.S. subproject in Marysville, Ohio, sponsored by the Beyond the Barrier Exhibition, 2009.

Thanks for faith

KM: How did you feel when you got it done?

RE: Relieved. I was so excited. It was like I did it. I really did it. The last piece I did was sewing the edges on together, but I learned how to use one sewing machine, how to use a needle and thread, how to cut, how to write. I learned so much on this that I wouldn't trade that. I wouldn't give it back for another thing. Some people ask me about the past and my past is part of who I used to be, but I don't really know that person no more. I just don't know me. I didn't know who I was then. It let me know that God came here and got me, even if he had to sit me down here for a life sentence. I think if he would have gave me any other sentence I would have never woke up. I'm just thankful of who he made and what he is making.

 

QSOS_KarenStiehlOsborn

Quilt by Karen Stiehl Osborn who was interviewed Karen Musgrave for The Nebraska Q.S.O.S. subproject in Omaha Nebraska in 2007.

Thanks for every moment.

KSO:
"Every Moment" is an art quilt that serves as a celebration of the things that are really important in life, family and friends, and a reminder to be thankful for and appreciative of every moment that I am given.

 

 

 

   

 
 

Available now for renewing members who upgrade to the $125 level: Why Quilts Matter DVD set

Receive a copy of Why Quilts Matter: History, Art & Politics, a landmark nine-part documentary series hosted by longtime quilt collector, scholar and Quilt Alliance co-founder Shelly Zegart  Two-DVD set includes nine 26-minute episodes. Limited offer so renew today to partake!

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  
 
With love and gratitude,
Amy

Amy E. Milne, Executive Director
The Alliance for American Quilts


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