Kaye Wood

Kaye Wood

QSOS-099

Kaye Wood

Karen Bennick

11/4/01

eQuilter.com

Houston, Texas

Heather Gibson

Karen Bennick (KB): This is Karen Dennick and I'm interviewing Kaye Wood at the International Quilt Festival, November 4, 2000, in Houston, Texas. Do you make quilts?

Kaye Wood (KW): Oh yes, a lot. [laughs.]

KB: I see this picture that you've shown me on the back of the book "Easy Hexagon Designs." We're going to use that to kind of break the ice here and find out where we start talking. This is one of the methods that you've invented or designed? What would you call this?

KW: I guess invented.

KB: Invented. Can you tell me a little bit how you do this?

KW: As in all of mine, what I try to do is simplify techniques so when it gets to my student level or the reader level that I've taken away as many mistakes that they might make as possible. This particular one came about--this is my Hawaiian quilt. You know that it's against the law to leave the state without buying fabric?

KB: Of course. [laughs.]

KW: I was teaching in Honolulu, and I just had to buy this fabric. Incidentally, the borders and the centers were all from the same piece of fabric. It's one of the flowers of the state.

KB: Was this in like a border print?

KW: It was more like a combination of stripe and borders. There'd be a few rows of the palm trees and then there'd be mixed in the flowers.

KB: The black background really sets things off nicely. How did the big flowers show up on the same fabric?

KW: They were interspersed continuously then what I did was center the flowers in the middle of the hexagon that made me design a tool that is called the Hexa-Cut™. What it does is it has an opening, and you can open it and view something and center in, then you put the next size in, remove it and rotary cut around it. The techniques in the whole book are much simpler than that. This is just when we fussy cut. The other techniques in the book, all the hexagons are strip cut. Two cuts and the hexagons are done, and they are always perfect.

KB: So there are no templates for the rest of the pattern?

KW: Just the "Starmaker 6" which is one of the three "Starmakers" that I designed back in 1982. You use it with a strip of fabric. The strip of fabric is cut the same height as the hexagon. Fold it in half. The point of the starmaker is put on, let me just show you here, the top of the strip, and you mark wherever the fold is. This will work for miniature to extra-large pieces, so you have to know where the fold is. Then you move that to the top of the strip and make two cuts, and you have perfect hexagons.

KB: That's so simple, why didn't I think of that? [laughing.]

KW: I don't know.

KB: You designed this in 1982. Were you quilting for some time before that? When did you first start to quilt?

KW: Well, that's sort of interesting because I started to make quilts after I started teaching quilting, which is sort of a different way around.

KB: Can you explain how that happened?

KW: I was teaching clothing construction and then I started traveling teaching machine embroidery. I traveled throughout Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. One day one of the students said to me, 'Why don't we try some quilting?' I said, 'Okay, next week bring a couple pieces of fabric.' I knew how to sew strips together, so that's what we did. We cut them apart and made some things. I'm still cutting strips and putting them together. I've never used a template other than the three "Starmakers" in any of my quilts.

KB: With the Octa-Cut™--

KW: There's an Octa-Cut ™, Hexa-Cut™, square and circle that are all made for the fussy cuts, and I came up with that because of this quilt. I wanted to center the flower and it was too hard to do it with strips.

KB: This is the same quilt?

KW: Yes.

KB: The quilt was just brought into the booth here, and the color looks so entirely different. I like it so much better in person. It's really nice. About how long would it take to make a quilt like this with the implements that you used?

KW: Oh, probably two to three days.

KB: That's for the top?

KW: Yes. I send all of my quilts out to be machine quilted. I'm not a hand quilter. I've never hand quilted or hand pieced, and I'm not a good enough machine quilter for my quilts. They deserve better than me, so I send them out to be quilted.

KB: Do you have any idea how many quilts you've made?

KW: Oh, probably two hundred. Of course, some of them are small. Probably two hundred, but every quilt I've ever made has been either a teaching sample for class or for television or for one of the books.

KB: You haven't made any quilts for gifts?

KW: Just a couple grandkids. My children don't have any quilts and we don't have any quilts on our beds. They're all in suitcases ready to go to class because they are all teaching samples. I didn't start out with quilting as a hobby. Actually, I started out teaching and switched to quilting because I enjoy the teaching part and the people part. Of course, I didn't know much about quilting when I taught my first class, but I knew enough to sew strips together, and I knew more than the people who were learning from me, but I've learned a lot since then.

KB: I believe you. Teachers have to learn a lot in order to be able to teach. Is there any other members of your family that are quilters?

KW: No.

KB: No grandmother or aunt?

KW: No, they didn't even hardly sew. I took up sewing as a hobby when I had four pre-school children at one time. I needed a hobby. Sometimes I felt like I should have been in the playpen and let them have the rest of the house. I just kept taking sewing lessons and sewing lessons and became a certified Bishop sewing teacher.

KB: What does a certified Bishop sewing teacher mean?

KW: Bishop sewing is a method of teaching sewing. Back in the early 70s when I was doing that, most of the commercial patterns were not utilizing the quick tips and the commercial tips that people had. A woman named Mrs. Bishop developed those and set about teaching people how to incorporate those into sewing. A lot of those I still use in my quilting.

KB: How do you make fabric choices?

KW: I don't think I've ever bought fabric for a quilt. I buy it for my stash, to feed my stash. When I get an inspiration at two in the morning I go to my stash and start making a quilt.

KB: Start pulling things out?

KW: Yeah. I have no idea. I just buy fabric when I see it, if I like it. I tend to buy a lot, probably three to five yards if I really like it.

KB: Do you have color preferences?

KW: You know, you're looking at this quilt, and these really are not my color preferences. Purple and teal probably are my favorite, and on most of my quilts they're in there. But with this one it was dictated by the flower in the middle.

KB: So, the flower, which is cream-color or almost like an unbleached muslin flower with yellow outlines, red flowers, green leaves with blue things, and the palm trees that are close by are green and have blue lines and yellow lines. You've picked up each color beautifully.

KW: Yeah, and it's interesting because the hexagons down the center of the quilt all have like a ring of color. The ones on the outside it doesn't look like I started with a hexagon because on three sides I started with the darkest color, which is black, and it's the background color, and came to the white. On the other three sides I started with the lightest color and went out to the black.

KB: So that's almost like a triangle with the points cut off.

KW: That's what it looks like, but it's actually the same hexagon. It's just that the background color is the same as the strip.

KB: Did you do that deliberately or did it happen as you were working?

KW: No, a lot of things happen by accident, but I wanted to change it. I didn't realize it wouldn't look like a hexagon, though. That part was an accident that's sort of nice.

KB: It gave you a whole different look to your quilt. You have a number of books that have been published, haven't you?

KW: I have self-published about twenty-six books on strip piecing now. Right now, I'm publishing one with Krause. They're bringing one out in the spring.

KB: And Krause is a--

KW: Publisher.

KB: I was going to ask you the names of these books, but that's too extensive a list. [laughs.]

KW: A whole bunch of them are called "Strip Piecing Project 1, 2, 3, 4, 5"--it's hard to come up with a title.

KB: This one is "Easy Hexagon Designs." How long ago did you do this one?

KW: That was in, I believe, 1998. My latest one is "Fantastic Fans." Those are all on fans, but there's no curved piecing because I wanted to simplify it.

KB: I'm looking at the cover of this book and it looks like curves, very graceful curves across the front of the cover. How do you do this without curved piecing?

KW: Well, I tell you, these are all fans, a fan and then a reverse fan and then a fan. It was sewn into this whole strip of fans, laid onto this background fabric, this decorative lace was laid on the raw edge and stitched in the ditch.

KB: So, it's almost appliquéd on?

KW: I guess you could except you don't see the stitches.

KB: Yeah, because it's part of the decoration, the lace. It's very beautiful.

KW: The same thing for the one on the back of it. There's no curved piecing here.

KB: And this would make someone who is not comfortable with curved piecing to feel confident to make one of these beautiful fan quilts that they might not even attempt otherwise.

KW: That's really what I attempt to do; to take a design that looks like a beginning quilter couldn't do it and simplify it down to the point where they could.

KB: So, you've taught at all levels I would imagine from quilt shops to guilds to on television.

KW: Right. Television has been exciting. I've been on since '88.

KB: Okay. What is the best thing you like about teaching?

KW: The people. The response when you can show them how they can simplify it and make a quilt, well I guess with confidence, and a quilt that looks like they really are more accomplished than they might be. I have a lot of students who send me pictures because they win prizes. I never have. Mine are teaching samples, my quilts.

KB: You don't quilt for competition?

KW: No.

KB: Never have?

KW: No. Never have, never will.

KB: None of your quilts have ever won an award?

KW: They've never been entered, so how can they win? [laughs.] That's right. I feel in quilting I would rather be judged on my teaching than on my quilting. Like I say, I aim to make it very simple for my students and so I don't look on it as artistic as you might some of the quilts that you see here.

KB: So, you're teaching method?

KW: I'm teaching methods, right.

KB: Have any of your students that you know of gone on and won a major prize at either Houston or Paducah [Kentucky.] or something like that?

KW: I don't think at Houston or Paducah. It's mostly the local quilt shows.

KB: But that's nice.

KW: Every time they've won an award, I feel like I've won one.

KB: You have because it's your method.

KW: That's right.

KB: Do you collect anything with quilting?

KW: Just fabric. I am coming out with my own line of fabric. It will be out in January with Peter Pan.

KB: With Peter Pan? Okay, can you give us any description of what it's going to be?

KW: The first collection, there's twenty-eight pieces in it, and it's based on very beautiful, three-dimensional look roses. It's called "My Rose Garden." Of course, there are background pieces that look almost solid, a tone-on-tone type thing.

KB: Is there enough stripe to it that with could do this quilt with that?

KW: Oh, I'm sure. I can't wait to get my hands on the fabric so I can do some of my designs.

KB: It would be fussy cut like this and work with something like this?

KW: Oh yeah. I think the most interesting thing is the television that we've done. It's been great because whenever I go to a quilt show like this everybody says they feel like they're my best friend. Of course, I feel that way, too. So it's great to see all the quilters and hear some of the ways you've affected them. That's great.

KB: Tell us a little about the television work that you've done. I mean, you just don't walk into the t.v. studio and say, 'Here I am, put me to work.' [laughs.]

KW: See, that would be a job. [laughs.] That's a little bit different.

KB: Tell me how this all came about.

KW: I was doing a video for one of my books and the man who was producing it said, 'Why don't you do a series for PBS?' and I said, 'Well, why not?' I knew nothing about it. I had done a little bit of local TV then he told me production costs run anywhere from thirty-five to about sixty-five thousand dollars. So that's not what you get paid. That's what you have to raise to do it. You produce thirteen weeks of television and hope that PBS will pick it up because it can't be too commercial. That was back in '88. We had to mortgage the house to do it. We did it. It's not all luck.

KB: It sounds like your family must be pretty supportive of what you're doing.

KW: Yes. We have five children. Of course, they're all raised now.

KB: Are they involved with this business at all?

KW: My daughter is. She's the only one that lives close. She's the one that maintains our website. We have an extensive website, and we have e-books for sale on the website. All my fabric will be on there pretty soon. The other children are all in California and Colorado. They're all boys.

KB: They're all boys. None of the boys are interested in quilting?

KW: No, no. I have one that's going to be an architect and two that are engineers, and one that is very much an entrepreneur.

KB: Did you ever tell them that the men in quilting are the ones that make the money, Michael James and John Flynn and some of our other famous male quilters.

KW: They think it's fun, and my grandkids think that every grandmother has a television program because they don't think it's anything special.

KB: Because it's been a part of their lives ever since they were born, probably.

KW: Yeah, right. But I find television is very easy. You just have to learn to think of the camera--When I look at the camera, I think of the quilters I've had in classes and how they would respond. Nobody out their cares what you're saying, they're just recording on tape what you're doing. So, you have to learn to think of all your audiences that have been around. Television has been great. I've been able to share my techniques with a lot of people at one time, and I've also--We have guests on the show, and so we've been able to bring some people that have really neat ideas that might not reach the mass market very easily and bring them on the show.

KB: What are some of the people that you've brought on the show?

KW: Oh, let's see. Well, a lot of them are here. Luveta Nichols comes on with her junk jeans all the time. She's fun. Joyce Drexler from Sulky. They come on once in a while and do some really fun things. Let's see. Cheryl Wederspan, she's here. Jane Hill has been on several times, and she goes with me on all our quilting cruises and teaches with me. That's another thing we have to do, take quilters on cruises.

KB: Oh, that's real hard work.

KW: It is. This is a real rough job. [laughs.]

KB: Now where do you take the cruises?

KW: We've done one to Alaska. The rest have been to the Caribbean. I'm a beach person, so I doubt we'll go back to Alaska. The beaches are not too good there.

KB: Now when you stop, do you go shopping for fabric in Bermuda or--

KW: Yeah, when we're in port quite often we'll have at least one activity for the quilters. One time in Jamaica the People to People conference set up a coffee, or tea, for us. We went in and visited with quilters there. Whenever we land in Curacao, they put up a quilt show for us, so we've joined with those quilters. We usually try to figure out where the fabric making is.

KB: It's funny how we gravitate to it. We'd find it no matter where we are in the world. Do you actually do sewing on board then--

KW: We either do sewing or sometimes just designing and working toward a project which the people can then take home and finish.

KB: Out of the two hundred or so quilts that you've made probably, how many do you still have?

KW: All of them.

KB: You have them all? You've never sold a quilt?

KW: Never sold a quilt. Never sold a quilt. I've been offered some money for one, but you know if I sold it I'd have to make it again because I need it for a sample, and I don't ever want to make the same one twice so I can't do that.

KB: With all these easy methods you still come up with a new one for other designs?

KW: I'm on to some other technique then.

KB: So for you the enjoyment of quilting is the fun of making a new design and being able to pass it on.

KW: Right.

KB: Then, of course, we have the Love Quilt going on. That's our event.

KW: Tell me some more about that. Explain what the Love Quilt is.

KB: I was asked about, I don't know, about fifteen years ago I guess, to design a project that a lot of people could easily make to provide quilts for charity. So, I came up with the concept of the six-hour quilt. The six-hour quilt is a reversible quilt. It can be done on the sewing machine or the serger. It's something anybody can sew. We've had teenagers. We've had eleven-year-olds do it, even some men sit down. And so, we decided to introduce it at different events, and festival was one of the first. We set up fifteen sergers. Janome [New Home sewing machines.] provides those for us. People sit down and we ask them to give us ten or fifteen minutes. This time we just finished seventy quilts. They'll be going to the children's hospital in Houston.

KB: That's a wonderful thing to do because most quilts will go to good homes.

KW: It's fun. Yes, and what I hope through doing this at different events is the people who take part and help us make the quilts will then take that back to their own community and organize their own people to make them so that it will spread.

KB: Well, may I share this with you? One of the members from the quilt guild that I belong to El Camino Quilters in North San Diego County saw you do this on television, and she decided that we needed to use one of our workshops to do quilts like this for our project. We made thirty-five of them.

KW: Oh, wow, in how long a time?

KB: It was one workshop.

KW: One workshop. Isn't that great?

KB: It is. It was easy. It was fun. The laughs, the fun that went with it was great. The quilts all went to the women's resource center for battered wives and children.

KW: I figure with the twenty million quilters in this country, if everybody made one, twenty million kids would have a quilt.

KB: That's right. It's very satisfying to know that.

KW: And they can go in the washer and the dryer. That's the kind of quilts my grandkids have.

KB: What do you think will happen to your quilts in the future?

KW: My quilts? Oh, I don't know. When I'm gone? I'm not going.

KB: Oh, you're not going? [laughs.]

KW: I have no idea what will happen to them. They probably, as long as my company continues to exist, they would probably stay with them because they are all used in all the books. After that, who knows? I guess I never thought of that. Good question.

KB: Well, what do you think makes a good museum quilt?

KW: I haven't got a clue. A good museum quilt is a quilt that's representative of the age they're in. Like I still think that one of the most popular quilts in the years to come are going to be the polyester quilts, the polyester knit that people made because they represented the fabric that we had at that particular stage.

KB: They'll probably be keepsakes.

KW: They will, even though we look down at them and say that we wouldn't make a quilt out of polyester knit they are still identified with a certain age.

KB: It's true. They will one day be keepsakes just like the broderie perse or something from another era, or the utility quilts that were made. Is there something you'd like to tell us on tape, kind of preserve for posterity, for what you think the future will be interested in knowing about you?

KW: About me? Well, I guess the only thing I can say is that just about anybody can get their dream to come true. As I was learning to sew and learning some of these techniques as a young woman, I was always impressed by the people who could come in and give seminars and take the skills that they had and had learned and developed and share them with everybody else. Unconsciously, now I realize that that was sort of my goal, but I didn't know how to get there. But, you know, you can't. You can't have a goal and see yourself there and figure out how to get there because then you miss all the advantages that might take you in another direction. I think if people are just open to whatever. Like I say, when somebody said to me, 'Why don't you have a TV. show,' I said, 'Why not.' Why not publish your own book? Well, there are certain things you have to learn to do those things, but people can do it.

KB: When you walk through a quilt show here, and you see these beautiful artistic quilts, how do you compare them with what you're doing and what the other quilters are doing in this day and age?

KW: The quilts here are just breath-taking. I guess I keep looking at them and thinking, 'I don't know how they made that, but if they used my technique here it probably would've been easier.' I guess I can appreciate those without being envious. I appreciate the people that made them. I think it's great that they submit them to be judged, that they're interested in doing that. I think one of the great things about quilting is the diversity. There are some people that consider themselves part of the quilting world who probably have never made a quilt, but they might organize a raffle for a guild, or they might be president of a guild. They have organizational skills and yet they bring something to us that adds to it. I think it is great that just about any medium or anything you do with a quilt is accepted as long as it's well done. I remember the time when if you entered a machine quilted quilt they had the different categories, right? Machine quilted and hand quilted. You don't see that anymore, and I think it's great. It's because people had to learn the skills, they needed to bring themselves up. Now they machine quilted quilts look every bit as good as the hand quilted quilt. So now it's accepted.

KB: Have you ever done any appliqué?

KW: Machine appliqué.

KB: Machine appliqué. Do you have methods for that as well?

KW: No that was back when I was teaching machine embroidery and appliqué. I don't do that anymore.

KB: Strip quilting?

KW: Well, people say you can get tired of strip quilting. I mean, you just find more designs. Like when I came across this hexagon thing, I mean, that just happened. See, I create in my sleep. I wake up in the morning and these ideas are there.

KB: That's what happened?

KW: See, the more I sleep the better I'll get. [laughs.] I really did, and that just blew me away when I went down to my studio and did that with hexagons. An interesting thing happened. I had spent three days and I had made a big Grandmother's Flower Garden, not a big quilt but a big wall hanging. I showed it to a person, and she said, 'It's too bad you can't use your techniques and machine sew this because it's got to be done by hand.' I said, 'Well I'm sure glad you didn't tell me yesterday!' [laughs.] Just to see the fascination in people when you show them how simple something can be when you break it down.

KB: Well, I'm going to be watching a lot closer next time I see you on television, that's for sure. [laughs.]

KW: I hope to be on television a long time. I find it very easy to do now. We don't have any script. The camera starts and we start and twenty-six minutes later we quit, and the show is done unless something happens.

KB: To do a production you have your method, your pattern. You've picked out your fabrics before the show starts. You're actually sewing something together--

KW: I tell you, when I decide on a project that I'm going to show on television I have to have ten times the amount of fabric as you would have for a finished project because I have to have everything done in all the different steps. We shoot continuously, so I have to be able to do a little bit in one step and go on to the next step and the next and the next.

KB: Now do you have a finished quilt made before you actually do that on television?

KW: Sometimes. Sometimes it's a top.

KB: Sometimes you're quilting as you do the show.

KW: Yeah, sometimes. I just teach the piecing technique, so sometimes it doesn't have to be finished. They can see the back better and how the things lay if it isn't quilted. It takes up a lot of room in the suitcase when it's quilted. We're doing more TV all the time. It's been fun, anyway. I've met great people.

KB: Did you know Doreen Speckler? [actually Speckman.]

KW: Oh, yeah. Doreen was a special person. There aren't too many people that are known in quilting that I don't know.

KB: I believe that because you're an institution in quilting.

KW: Institutionalized?

KB: No, that's not what I mean. [laughs.] It could be because a lot of great quilters are also a little bit…they need a little bit of institutionalizing but many of us heal ourselves with quilting.

KW: That's right.

KB: Have you ever used quilting as a healing process from a stressful time in your life?

KW: The only stressful times I think I ever have in my life are some of the deadlines that I have, but those deadlines I always impose on myself. A book has to be done. This has to be done. This has to be done. I guess I can't think of any stressful times.

KB: You're lucky, very fortunate.

KW: I suppose if I thought long enough, I might be able to.

KB: Is there any particular quilt that's a favorite?

KW: The one that has the technique that I'm working on in the present. That's the favorite.

KB: The project that's being worked on.

KW: Yes. Right. I'm working on three or four new books right now.

KB: Three or four. That'll bring you over thirty.

KW: Yeah.

KB: I'm amazed. Have you ever owned or worked in a quilt shop?

KW: No, I've worked with enough quilt shops that--you don't want to work in the shop.

KB: Not that business end of it.

KW: No, teaching is the best part.

KB: How many miles a year do you put on?

KW: I'll tell you this. My husband and I just took all our children and grandchildren on a cruise and I was able to get twenty-three round trip airline tickets with my free ones so everybody flew free. That's gives you some idea.

KB: You fly around--

KW: At least two or three times a month.

KB: Two or three times a month you leave home and go off to somewhere and do a guild presentation?

KW: Sometimes guilds. More lately it's been the shows like this and preparing for television shows.

KB: Is there anything that you would like to discuss and put down for posterity?

KW: No but I just think that quilting is, I don't know, it just seems to bring satisfaction to a lot of people. Just holding fabric.

KB: We try to make this a forty-five-minute interview, so we can stretch it out or we can also cut it short. Did you have a question you would like to ask? [other team member asks for the dimensions of the quilt.] Yes, do you know the dimensions?

KW: Yes, I put the dimensions down.

KB: She put the dimensions down on the paperwork. The quilt that we're talking about is 52 by 68 and it's called "Kaye's Hawaiian Quilt." I believe she did tell us that at the beginning of the interview. Do you do the finished product to the point of getting the backing and the batting and stuff together before you send it for quilting, or do you let the person who's going to do the quilting finish that aspect of it?

KW: I finish the whole quilt top before I send it out to be quilted. I always put my own bindings on because I like my technique better than theirs might be. Most of the time I don't know what theirs would be, but I prefer putting my own on.

KB: It looks like you sew the--

KW: I machine sew the front and then hand do the back.

KB: That's the way I do it.

KW: Yes. I really don't like to hand sew, but I haven't found an acceptable way to completely put the binding on by machine. Consequently, a lot of my quilts don't have the binding finished.

KB: But you don't have a finished product if you don't finish the binding. [laughs.]

KW: See, that depends on your interpretation of something unfinished. To me, a sample this big that is just pieced might be finished because it's never going to be anything else.

KB: Right. That's exactly true.

KW: But some of them I have finished just because the students like them finished.

KB: And it does keep them together really well for when you're traveling and packing and unpacking and hanging. Do you put a rod pocket on all of them for display?

KW: I do.

KB: That's just part of finishing them?

KW: Right. That's the way I feel because you never know how it's going to be hung.

KB: These examples are not used on beds.

KW: No. You're looking at the bottom.

KB: I like the backing on this.

KW: Isn't it pretty?

KB: Yeah, that's a beautiful, beautiful backing.

KW: One of the gals that does most of my quilting for me, I never tell them what design to quilt because that's their expertise. I never send a backing either. This is the kind of backing they pick out for me. Isn't that great?

KB: That could've gone on the front as well, it matches so well. It's teal and varying shades with little dots that look like eyeballs coming up through the water. I really like it. It really lends itself to the Hawaiian theme.

KW: I don't tell the quilter what pattern to use and I've always been pleasantly surprised with what I get.

KB: Another thing I haven't noticed, do you make a label for your quilts?

KW: You know I would like to say I do. Most of them, however, I have written my name on somewhere. I usually do it just with thread in the border or somewhere on the sleeve, but I notice this one doesn't have one, but it should. I had a quilt stolen, a small one, at a show about four weeks ago. It had my name on it and it was returned to me. They caught the person shoplifting. So, I really should have my name on them.

KB: The quilt was in their possession?

KW: Yes.

KB: I'm very glad that…

KW: I am, too.

KB: There seems to be quite a bit of that. I checked on the Internet and there is a large number of quilts listed as missing. How heartbreaking that is.

KW: I've only had one other one taken in all the years. It was on the table in a booth in a show that one I've never gotten back. Quilting has been fun. It's enabled me to go all over the world. I probably would not have done that without it. I have friends in just about every country now from here at Houston and going over to the Expo's.

KB: They are friends for such a brief period of time. You get to know them. You have a common interest. They're familiar with you from seeing you on the television. You're like the lady next door.

KW: That's right.

KB: Many times, when I'm introduced to a quilt's that has won large awards, I sometimes feel intimidated. I want you to know you don't intimidate me.

KW: Well, good. I hope nobody's ever intimidated by me. I'm their biggest rooter and I want them to succeed. I think it's important for those of us in the industry who had maybe a little more luck or been in the right place at the right time to do everything we can to help people who are just coming up. You know, people helped us. That's what it's all about.

KB: Well, I admire your work. I admire your books. I have several at home.

KW: Good.

KB: Now I need to open them. [laughs.]

KW: There you go. Find out how easy it really is.

KB: Well, I think we can conclude this interview. It is twenty minutes after four.

KW: Well, I want to thank you and your committee. I think it's a great thing you're doing. What the project will be used for is for people to check on the Internet. If someone is doing research, they can go in and get research information. Some people want to do, say, a book on sewing studios, and they'll go in and they'll see the people that use that information in their discussion and maybe contact them and put it in a book. Or maybe some other quilters will just look through just to see what someone else is doing and be inspired by things that you've put on there. We'll go over and have a picture taken of the quilt, and that will also be in it.