Voices from QuiltCon
Running Stitch - A QSOS Podcast
Running Stitch is back! We're bringing you a special bonus episode: Voices from QuiltCon, featuring mini-interviews from quilters just like you, collected at the Quilt Alliance's booth at QuiltCon 2024. We invited show attendees to stop by and randomly select a question chosen from our Quilters Save Our Stories oral history project. Enjoy this mini-episode, and we'll be back in a week or two with three new episodes to close out our fourth season, focusing on the intersection of quilts and technology. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss these exciting episodes!
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The Rotary Cutter
Running Stitch - A QSOS Podcast
Other than the sewing machine, what tool has been the biggest innovation in quiltmaking? Yes, that’s right: in this episode of Running Stitch, we’re talking all about the rotary cutter. Our guest is Kristin Barrus, a PhD candidate at University of Leicester and a quiltmaker. Kristin’s work explores 21st century quiltmaking through the lenses of women's studies, fan studies, and anthropology. We’ll talk with Kristin about the origins of the Modern Quilt movement, and she also shares with us the fascinating history of how quilters came to use--and love--the rotary cutter. Learn more...
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Electric Quilt
Running Stitch - A QSOS Podcast
We’re back with our second episode of Season 4! We’re continuing our focus on the intersection of technology and quiltmaking, but this time, we’re going digital. We’re exploring the backstory and invention of , the leading quilt design software that's been changing how quilters create their work for more than 30 years. Join us for a conversation with Penny McMorris, co-founder of The Electric Quilt Company, and a key player of the late twentieth century’s quilt revival. We’ll hear how Penny and her husband Dean Neumann created Electric Quilt software, listen to snippets from...
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The Industrial Revolution
Running Stitch - A QSOS Podcast
We’re kicking off a new season of Running Stitch, focused on the intersections of technology and quiltmaking. But it’s not just about computers and digital sewing machines! In this episode we’re going back to the roots of quilt making to discover how our nostalgic ideas about quiltmaking as a pre-industrial craft is just that: nostalgia. In fact, quilting as we know it exists because of the Industrial Revolution. New innovations like the factory-made sewing needles, cotton sewing thread, and eventually the sewing machine, created the environment in which quiltmaking flourished,...
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Quilts Below the Radar
Running Stitch - A QSOS Podcast
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 .
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Radical Quilt Histories
Running Stitch - A QSOS Podcast
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...
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Sewing with Purpose
Running Stitch - A QSOS Podcast
Sara Trail, and the non-profit organization she founded in 2017, the Social Justice Sewing Academy, has built on 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...
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Going Pro
Running Stitch - A QSOS Podcast
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...
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Song Quilts
Running Stitch - A QSOS Podcast
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...
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Learning to Quilt
Running Stitch - A QSOS Podcast
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.
info_outlineThis 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. Video of this, and other Textile Talks, is available via YouTube.