Craft in America: Quilts

If you missed last night's newest episide of Craft in America: Quilts,

it is still available to view at this link below.

In the past, this award winning PBS series periodically featured short segments on quilts and quilters in America. They were extremely well done documenteries and incredibly interesting to crafters and artists of all kinds.

But over the past decades quilting interest and the number of quilters in America has skyrocketed as has the interest in quilts and their quilters.

In the newest series the entire program was devoted to quilts.  With a focus on  

contemporary quilters from diverse traditions the program with a team of six, celebrate the important role quilts have played in our country’s story.

Featuring four contemporary quilters selected by a team based on surveys and interest groups quilt artists, Susan Hudson, Victoria Findlay Wolfe, Michael A. Cummings, Judith Content, the International Quilt Museum, and with special guest Ken Burns. 

The series begins at the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska, where the world’s largest publicly held collection of approximately 6,000 quilts from more than 50 countries, dating from the 1600s to today.

Twenty-eight of those quilts are owned by filmmaker Ken Burns.

And to quote the already legendary documentary fim maker.

“This is what human beings are required to do, to take raw materials and transform them into something greater than the sum of their parts,” Burns says. “And that’s what a quilt is, that’s what art is.”

And as artist Susan Hudson so beautifully explains her creative process:

Albuquerque Journal

https://www.abqjournal.com/1404138

I start to see visions coming through my head,” she says. 

“It’s like those old-time movie projectors where the pictures come slowly and cut in and out. 

That’s my process. I take the time to figure out how I’m going to re-create each one.” 

After the visions appear, Hudson then looks for help from her spirit helpers.

“I always seek guidance from them,” she says. “I’ll put an idea to the side and pray on about it. Then about 10 minutes later, I’ll see how I’m going to fix or continue something.

It always involves more than just me. The spiritual guidance is there to ensure that the story is told boldly and truthfully.”

The programs also features New York based quilters Victoria Finley Wolfe.

and Michael A. Cummings,

as well as 

California-based quilter Judith Content.

To watch the video now while the link is still available go to:

QUILTS episode | Season 11 Episode 1 | Craft in America | PBS

https://www.pbs.org/video/quilts-episode-yhkwcj/

To read about the exhibition

Craft in America: Quilts 4 Directions

https://www.craftinamerica.org/exhibition/quilts

Michele Bilyeu Creates With Heart and Hands as she shares her imaginative, magical, and healing journey from Alaska to Oregon. Creating, designing, sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting... from my heart and with my hands.

Feeling Like a Featherweight But Sewing Like a Warhorse

As far as I am concerned, and in spite of all statistics and indications to the contrary,  I still consider myself normal. Ok, then. Somewhat normal. Perhaps, my own new normal.

Yesterday was National Quilting Day and I made the choice to quilt...all day long..rather than write about it.

I am sewing on a challenge quilt for my my guilt guild  quilt guild, I am designing a prayer flag for several people who could sure use one, I am trying to make a new table runner in time for Easter, and I have the fabric out to make either a jacket, or a vest, to match my new badge id tag and bag that have a hard time matching anything else I wear.

But in spite of all of that, according to the "Quilting in America" survey results after a year of compilation for 2014,  I am apparently not normal. At least not as far as what I own, buy, do, or spend in the quilting in America industry.

                

   Looking old, and more than a bit well used! But boy,does it get a lot done!

I do love reading the results of each new posting of the National Quilt Survey and seeing just how I compare..after all like most of you..I consider myself to be incomparable. I mean we all do what we love to do, and we only buy what we can afford....don't we?  Well, apparently not.

So, I did take this years survey for next years posted results. And the deadline is almost up in a few days, so go to the link below if you want to take it and take it quick if you want to influence products and how quilting money is spent on us and our interests!

Quilter's Survey

www.quilterssurvey.com/

2015 Quilters Survey Information. Thank you for your interest in the 2015 Quilting Survey. Your feedback is important to help guide improvements in the quilting

Now, last year's results, which were published this year of course, were quite interesting. A bit different from the last few years that I've downloaded and read them. I'm always amazed at just how much quilter's spend and how for the most part, the majority of money is spent by older rather than by new and introductory quilters. Interesting because, that is where all of the styles, quilts, magazines, and other media are now being directed towards..the young and the new.

After all, I'm sure they figure we are a dying age group, and of course we are. I fully to expect to reach the end of my rope ..or crochet cotton...and will no doubt hang on to it just as both of my parents did..physically if not mentally!

So, what were last years results???

Quilting in America Survey from 2014 showed that the quilting industry was worth $3.76 BILLION annually. In other words, if we didn't shop, we could be helping to pay off our national debt. Hmm, not sure if I'm ready to give up quilting, just yet!

That was a 5% increase in the past 4 years.And the average household expenditure for quilting has increased 36/%. Sorry, folks, not mine. Part of the reason I take the survey. I want to make it real and I have a modest budget and a modest expenditure.

Seriously, people! Haven't you wondered why I have been grabbing fabric out of your hands at those free fabric tables. Heck, I asked a very famous quilter for her scraps once and she sent me a smiley face. I wanted and needed those scraps. She said she was just throwing them in the trash. Nooooo!


It showed that there are 16 MILLION quilters in America, or one out of every 20 households. If I could do the math, and I can't, I'm trying to figure what to divide into what with that $3.76 BILLION we quilters spend. Some of you are sure spending more than your share, because you are spending mine, as well.

And moreover, the numbers of us are on the decline. See above, where I talk about how we are dying off and how most of us are old, and not young. So tell me again "Just why is everything geared towards young people and not teaching us old dogs new tricks instead of trying to teach the old dogs the young dogs tricks???

Heck, if I drop something on the floor..thread, a bobbin, my quilting project..I can barely bend over to pick it up again, if I can even see it through my bifocals that the optometrist gave up on trying to get me to see. And I quote...'If you can see me, even if its not my facial features, I'm happy with that." Seriously? I sew, quilt, craft and create art. Would a blur be good enough for your golf game????
As the survey results said: 

"However, we know Dedicated Quilters don't regard quilting as an optional hobby, but as part of their lives. They, like other quilters throughout history, quilt during good times and bad. Their quilting is both a means of expressing themselves creatively, and also of expressing what is going on in their lives and how they are dealing with it."

Well, I use potholder therapy for my sorrows and blues. And I make art every day. What? You mean you don't decorate your potholders with embossing paint sticks? Well, this quilter does!

Now, could someone pass me my magnifying glass, give me a hand so I can get up. And if you don't mind, remind me what I was doing, who I am, and what room I am currently in.

Because to be quite honest, I don't always remember. And yes, those handprints of mine might be elderly, they might feature a fabric designed with antique sewing needle cases, but look at just how quickly those old girls can still get things done?

I'm having way too much fun expressing myself creatively to process all that is happening in my life and how I am dealing with it!!!!

I May Just Be the New Normal!!!

And I'm not packing it in, just yet!!! 

Singer Featherweight: Sewing Accessories Tutorial

After all!  2014: My Year of 250 Projects

After all, I still have a lot of liquid soap dispensers to make quilts wraps for ;-)

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey from Alaska to Oregon with thousands of free Quilting, Sewing, and Crafting Patterns and Tutorials. Help change the world, one little quilt, art quilt, and prayer flag at a time!