Peggy Bruns

Peggy Bruns

NE68850-002

Peggy Bruns

Margaret Bader

4/15/09

A Friend of the Quilt Alliance

Lexington, Nebraska

Margaret Bader

Note: Peggy is not a member of the DAR. While this is a DAR quiltmaker documentation project, membership in the DAR is not required for participation.

Margaret Bader (MB): My name is Margaret Bader. Today's date is Wednesday, April 15, 2009. We are at the Dawson County Museum in Lexington, Nebraska, and I am conducting an interview with Peggy Bruns for the Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories project. We are doing this through the American Heritage Committee of the Nebraska State Society Daughters of the American Revolution. Peggy Bruns is a quilter who belongs to the Plum Creek Quilters Guild, The Nebraska State Quilt Guild, just friends Quilt Iowa Guild, and Basket Cases from Lexington. First of all, Peggy, will you tell me about one of your quilts?

Peggy Bruns (PB): One of my special quilts, one of my favorites is the New York Beauty, and I started it at a retreat at Camp Comeca that Prairie Point Junction puts on. Paula Bosselman was the teacher for this quilt. There were only three of us in the class, but we had a wonderful time. I used scraps to put it together. I have it hanging on my wall in my living room. It is one of my favorites. I did hand quilt it.

MB: What special meaning does this quilt have for you?

PB: I started with the outside fabric, and I just really liked the colors and the way it went together.

MB: Why are you choosing this one?

PB: I like the visual effect of it. It is hard for me to choose one quilt because I have so many, and one day one is the favorite and the next day another is the favorite.

MB: What might other conclude about you because of your quilt?

PB: They might conclude that I have patience to hand quilt all these things.

MB: And visual effect too.

PB: Visual effect. I like Scraps. I like to put together scrappy quilts.

MB: How do you use this quilt?

PB: This one happens to be decoration. It's a wall quilt. I hang in on my living room wall. For it is strictly for looking at.

MB: Is it there most of the time?

PB: Yes, most of the time.

MB: So, it is kind of a focal point in that room. Do you have any special plans for this quilt like after you move?

PB: I am going to hang it back up after we move. All the bed quilts we use. All the bed quilts are to be used and I don't believe in hiding them, and if they get ruined using them so be it.

MB: Tell me about your interest in quilt making.

PB: I started quilt making back in 1970. When I was in high school, I wanted to order a cross stitch quilt kit out of a Better Homes and Gardens Magazine. And my mother said, ‘You'll never finish it. Don't order it.' So, I didn't order it. That got put on the back shelf, and I just kept sewing garments. Then after I got married in 1970, we moved to Hartsburg, Illinois, where my husband is from, and I joined the little church group there. They quilted for hire. They quilted for a whole penny a yard of thread at that time. So, you could get a quilt quilted for twenty dollars, a whole bed sized quilt for fifteen or twenty dollars. Anyway, I learned to hand quilt from these ladies. I was twenty and the next youngest person there was probably sixty-five. I learned lots and lots of good things, the old way of doing it, and I made lots of friendships.

MB: So, would you say that these were the people who taught you how to quilt?

PB: Yes, I learned from the people at this church group Plus just from sewing skills from clothing construction and so I just learned by putting it together because I already sewed clothing construction.

MB: Did your mother teach you that or classes in school?

PB: My mother taught me that.

MB: How many hours a week do you quilt now?

PB: I work full time right now, but I still quilt an hour a day because I have my quilt frame set up in the living room so if I want to watch the news or something else. I can sit down at the quilt frame, and I can hand quilt while I am watching TV. Obviously, I don't get much watched. I listen.

MB: What is your first quilt memory?

PB: My first quilt memory: I have a doll quilt that my great-grandmother made for me out of feed sacks scraps. It is probably only fifteen inches square, but I remember her making that for me, and I still have it, and it is very special for me.

MB: Do you have it covering a little doll?

PB: Yes, it is in my little crib.

MB: Are there other quiltmakers among your family or friends?

PB: I have lots of friends that are quiltmakers now. When I first started quilting you had to go back to my great grandmothers to find any quilters. My mom did not quilt. My mother-in-law doesn't sew at all. My grandparents didn't quilt, but my great grandparents did so it came through the generations. As I have moved from place to place, quilters have been an instant group of friends. They are lovely people.

MB: How does quilt making impact your family?

PB: My family does not know me without quilt making. I have always had a hand quilting frame up in the house even when the house was smaller. I put it in front of the couch, and you would have to either sit behind it or lie down on the couch and look under it to see television. I know one Thanksgiving, and this was after my boys were grown and gone from home, they came home for Thanksgiving, and I had finished a quilt. I took the quilt frame down, and I had put it away. The first thing when they came into the house they wanted to know where my quilt frame was. They were so used to seeing it. It was part of the house.

MB: Have you ever used quilts to get through a difficult time?

PB: I even have a quilt here in the museum that is on display. The Grandmother Fan is over there. I sewed on that a lot by hand in the hospital when my mother was in the hospital with cancer, so it is very special.

MB: Tell me about an amusing experience that occurred from your quilt making or teaching.

PB: When I was making bunk bed quilts for my boys, Matt was about two, and I had his bunk bed quilt in the frame, and I was in the kitchen making supper. He had apparently thought that it was like a trampoline. Pretty soon I heard this crash. He had gotten up on the quilt frame and jumped once. That was the end of the quilt frame. It broke the rods, ripped a corner of the quilt, but it was his quilt; so, we mended it and put it on his bed anyway.

MB: How old was he then?

PB: He was two.

MB: Oh, my goodness! What an active little boy! What do you find pleasing about quilt making?

PB: To me the hand quilting part of it is very relaxing when I sit down behind the quilt frame and hand quilt. It is a smooth, rhythmatic, relaxing experience for me.

MB: What aspects of quilt making do you not enjoy?

PB: There is none. I enjoy almost all aspects. I am not a real good machine quilter. I have been working at it some, but I still like the hand quilting better. When I am machine quilting, I'm a little more tense. You have to relax to make it turn out.

MB: Have advances in technology influenced your work?

PB: Yes, definitely. When I first started quilting, I used cardboard templates. I drew around all of my templates with a pencil and then cut farther around with the scissors. Now, I use a rotary cutter, plastic rulers. There is no end to things that they have created that make quilting faster.

MB: What are your favorite techniques and materials?

PB: I like to go scrappy. So, I like earth tones. I like putting the colors together. As far as techniques go, I do like the piecing best. I have been working on the appliqué a little bit. I do have some embroidery. I like the pieced quilts the best.

MB: Describe your studio or the place you create. You already said something about your frame in the living room.

PB: The frame is in the living room I do have a sewing room. It's a little bit on the small size. It has lots of cupboards in it. My sewing machine is in there. Right next to it is the laundry room so the ironing board is up all the time so you can press as you stitch. There are always several projects going at once. If I get bored with one, I switch to another one.

MB: That just leads to the next question: How do you balance your time?

PB: I sew bits and pieces at a time. Usually, I have separate quilts organized in boxes. This box is this quilt, and this box is this quilt, and if I want to work on one, I pull that one out and work on it. Usually for quilting, I have just one quilt at a time that I am quilting on because I put all the big quilts in my frames. I do have a hoop that I hand quilt with. Once in a while I will have two going at once, but not too often.

MB: How many do you have going though when you are just piecing?

PB: Right now, I think I have three quilts that I am piecing and one in the frame.

MB: Do you use a wall design?

PB: Actually, I use my living room floor. One of these days I will probably have to quit that. I don't have any animals in the house. My living room floor is an off-white, sort of a dirt color, sort of a light, sandy color. So, it works really well to lay everything out on the living room floor. That is where I design, and I will leave it there and come back and look at it later and see if I still like it.

MB: You have enough space where it can lay out.

PB: I can lay out a full queen-sized quilt.

MB: I know you already mentioned some of the guilds that you belong to or the different organizations, but would you like to repeat again what you belong to?

PB: I belong to the Nebraska State Quilt Guild. I was going to tell you a little bit now about why this quilt show came about. I have all these quilts in the museum. It all started out. Merikay Gengenbach is the President of the Nebraska State Quilt Guild this year. She had to find someone to make the raffle quilt. They wanted a hand quilted raffle quilt. She asked me if I would do it. So last year I made the hand-made raffle quilt for the state quilt guild, and it is out here at the museum. It will be raffled off next July 25th at the State Quilt Guild Meeting, and all the money that is raised will go to the Quilt Study Center in Lincoln Nebraska. Linda Maloley is the quilt mom, and she was arranging for places for the quilt to be shown. When they said, ‘Let's have it at the Dawson County Museum for a while.' They said, ‘Why don't you bring some of your other quilts to the museum?' They didn't know what they were getting into. I collected back from sisters and different people that I have given things to. So, it's the first time that I have seen them all together too.

MB: Oh, how amazing. This is just a great experience to have all your quilts together.

PB: Oh, it is fun. The local quilt guild was just wonderful--the Plum Creek Quilters Guild, in helping me hang all these and get them all labeled then the open house that we had. Great group of gals that helped a lot with this. I also belong to Just Friends Quilt Group in Iowa. I have a quilt here from when I moved to Nebraska from Iowa. It is put together from quilt blocks that those girls gave me when I moved. That's hanging over there. I also belong to Basket Cases which is a small afternoon quilt group that gets together and just works on whatever projects that we are working on.

MB: It really tells a lot about your life.

PB: It tells what I like.

MB: What do you think makes a great quilt?

PB: A great quilt, well, I think you have to have love go into it to make it a great quilt. You have to have a balance of color. You have to work at it to make them square. Some of my first quilts weren't especially square. Just attention to detail. If you are making it for someone in particular, attention to what that person likes.

MB: What makes a quilt artistically powerful?

PB: I think it is the color and the quilting design that you put with the piece that you design, and how it combines to draw out the designs.

MB: What makes a quilt appropriate for a museum or a special collection?

PB: I think that is different with everybody's. I think that is a matter of opinion because you can get a quilt. There are quilts--art quilts. I fully appreciate all the work that goes into them, but I don't like them, but they are wonderful museum pieces. So, I think it is all a matter of preference.

MB: Different people like different things- variety, different designs that you might see.

PB: It would be the same as saying is this painting worth putting up for people to, see? What story does it tell? What does it say to you?

MB: What makes a great quiltmaker?

PB: That's a good question. A great quiltmaker. I never considered myself. I think I sort of fell into making so many quilts. It was something that I loved to do, and that is what makes a great quiltmaker. They love to do it because some people don't like to put the color together. Some people don't like to do the hand quilting. Everyone has something that is special to them, but I think if you truly love doing it, it makes you a great quilter if you do it for other people to share.

MB: So, you have heart in it.

PB: Yes.

MB: What works or whose works are you drawn to? Is there a special quilter that you can tell me about?

PB: I like Harriet Hargrave. Some I admire. She does beautiful heirloom machine quilting. I like hand quilting very much, but I really appreciate. It's quite a talent for someone to make a beautiful machine quilt.

MB: That's interesting for me to hear about machine quilting versus hand quilting. What artists have influenced you?

PB: I think grandmothers have influence me more than what you would probably determine artists. I have read through a lot of the books. I am trying to think of the names of them like the "Nebraska Quilts and Quiltmakers" [Patricia Cox Crews and Ronald C Naugle, Bison Books, 2003.], where they show the pictures of the quilts and the grandmother that made them and who they made them for, or the "Quilts of the Oregon Trail " [Mary Bywater Cross, Schiffer Publishing, 2006.]. That kind of thing influences me more than say the art studio type of quilt.

MB: How do you feel about, and we've already mentioned it, machine quilting versus hand quilting?

PB: I think there is a place for both. If you look back into history, as soon as there were treadle machines for women to use, they started piecing on the machine. It was faster. If you look back, there are examples of machine quilted quilts. I know I mended one for some friends of mine. It was made the first part of the twentieth century. It was a machine quilted Double Wedding Ring and I repaired it for them. It had mouse holes. I repaired it by hand. I made it look like machine quilting. So, I think there is a place for both, just like hand quilting. There is good and bad hand quilting there is good and bad machine quilting. There is an art and a definite technique, artistry know-how to doing good machine quilting.

MB: Do you have a machine that does this?

PB: I have a home sewing machine. I do not have a big quilting machine. I don't have any desire to get one.

MB: But you have machine quilted some of yours then?

PB: Some of the smaller ones.

MB: That would be really hard to do.

PB: You'll learn.

MB: What about longarm quilting? And I am not even sure of what longarm quilting is.

PB: Longarm quilting is when you do have those big machines. Some of it is gorgeous and some of it, because you have the custom, you have border quilting that is all the same. You have people that design certain things, and there again you have both good and bad. I don't think there is any one type that you can say that this is better than this. As far as hand quilting is better than machine quilting, or machine quilting is better than hand quilting. It depends upon what you want to use it for. It depends on personal preference. I would hate to see hand quilting go by the wayside where nobody did it at all, but I really enjoy the hand quilting. Other people it does take longer. If you are going to have utility quilts, it is sometimes nice to be able to get them done faster with machine quilting.

MB: Why is quilt making important in your life?

PB: It is important in my life. It has always been my little niche where I can relax, and I can play with color, and I can play with fabric. I can meet people that have like interests. When you move from place to place, which we have done from time to time, it instantly connects you with people. I have met lots of wonderful people through quilting.

MB: I think it shows your talents. In what ways do your quilts reflect your community or region?

PB: I think my quilts probably look very Midwestern. I'm a very conventional person. I do fairly traditional quilting. I don't go out way out on a limb and do artsy or modernistic. I am a very Midwestern conventional. I use my quilting like our quilt guild has projects like making quilts for Parent Child Center or the hospital, or this year we are making bags to give to the Child Welfare people. So that when children are taken out of the home, we have been making bags and filling them. I think that you should always give back.

MB: If you are making quilts for some project like Health and Human services would it often be hand pieced?

PB: Most we of those are machine done. Most of the ones that we do for donation to Health and Human Services or to the Parent-Child Center we do machine quilt them.

MB: Do you think your husband's job or being married to- -do you want to explain your husband's occupation? So, you think that would influence your--[quilt making.]

PB: Well, my husband started out; we have been married thirty- nine years. We started out--we were at Iowa State University going to school. He farmed for a little while after graduation. Then he worked for John Deere. He has been a John Deere dealer for thirty-nine years, no thirty-five years now. I don't think he really influences my quilting so much other than he just lets me have as much room as I need to do it. But other than that, he'll tell somebody,' Yes, I helped with that quilt I stayed out of the way.'

MB: What do you think about the importance of quilts in American life?

PB: I think all through American life, quilts have told a story because you go back, and the names of the quilts and the patterns tell what's going on at the time. And if they are labeled a lot of times, they tell family histories. Quilts, I think, tie things together.

MB: Okay, that sounds good. In what ways do quilts have special meanings for women's history in America?

PB: I think, in women's history, quilting has been a way for women to express themselves while still being in the home, or you can express your feelings, you can express your love for other people through your quilts. It is a way of connecting.

MB: I am looking right now at this quilt that shows all these children around the border. Can you tell me why you chose the children around the edge?

PB: That quilt is called Peace Together. It is P-E-A-C-E. "Peace Together." It shows all the children of different colors around the world. They are all holding hands. I quilted little jump ropes around them. It is showing love around the world. We need more love and not war.

MB: And they all have different colors and different costumes.

PB: They have different clothes, different costumes, different color faces.

MB: How do you think quilts can be used?

PB: They can be used as comfort. I think a lot of times that is what people think of. They think of their grandmother and comfort when they see quilts. When I first started quilting, I never dreamed that I would hang a quilt on the wall. All my first quilts were baby quilts or bed quilts. I still make a lot of bed quilts. We have come now so now that we are using them for table runners. We are wearing quilted things. We are making wall hangings out of quilted things. Were just doing everything out of quilted things, but to me the basic quilt is the one your grandmother made. So to me the basic quilt is the one you wrap up in.

MB: I see various sizes of quilts around here. I see some Christmas decorations. Stockings and centerpieces like for your table and runners for the table. I see lots of different things. I see a vest over here.

PB: Yes, there are lots of ways to use fabric and quilted material anymore. If you go clear back, the Chinese used quilted material in their quilting to stay warm. I like history, and I think that's part of the reason I like quilting too. I go back in history and look at the way things come through history.

MB: How do you think quilts can be preserved for the future?

PB: The Quilt Study Center in Lincoln is doing an excellent job. I don't think the individual will be the ones to preserve quilts for the future. They have to be taken care of by someone that has climate control. They have to pick out the few special quilts because the ones we keep in our families, we use. And if they get put on the shelf no one sees them. So, I think there is a big place for museums and places like international quilt study center to preserve the quilts for history.

MB: Could you tell me what has happened to some of the quilts that you have made for family and friends?

PB: Disasters or other things?

MB: But you did say some were returned to you for this show.

PB: Yes, some have been returned to me for this show. There is one here that has been mended because my son's dog chewed holes in it. I found, I still had fabric. I took it apart and mended that. The one that was in the frame when my other son jumped on it. I don't think that there have been too many other disasters with quilts. I do have one sister who I was going to borrow her quilt back, but she used it so much it was worn through on the top. So, I think that she needs a new one.

MB: Are you happy though that she used it?

PB: Yes, I am not sad. I'm happy. I told her I think that you need to pick another quilt. And my oldest sister, her quilt is hanging here. She used it for a long time on her bed. They sat on it and put their shoes on it and all these things. Some of the stitching broke on it. I did re-quilt parts of that. She just displays it now because it is getting rather fragile. It was used a lot. I also have the first quilt that I gave my mother since she said that I wouldn't finish a quilt in high school, of course, so I had to make her the second quilt that I made I wasn't living close. It was an extra-long Double Wedding Ring. I made it. I hand quilted it, and I gave it to her for Christmas and it matched her wallpaper. So, she was very surprised. I have that back now. It has faded some. She used it for a lot of years but, she was good about keeping the shades pulled so it didn't get too much sun.

MB: So, you believe in taking really good care of them, but on the one you use on your bed, you leave it on at night? You do not roll it up?

PB: Yes, I do. I sleep under it.

MB: So, some are definitely used. What do you think is the biggest challenge confronting quiltmakers today?

PB: There is so much out there today, I think. When I started quilting, there was very little out there. I don't know if there is. You can't really have too much. I think part of the challenge now is getting some of the younger generation interested. I don't think we have quite as many. When you look at the quilt guild, there are not as many young people interested. There's a few. There aren't as many young people. There's a few, but not as many and we want to keep some people interested. I think that we need to keep documenting our quilts, so they know why we made them, what we made them for, and why they are special to us.

MB: So how do you document yours?

PB: I put labels on the back of all my quilts. When I first started I would just embroidery my initials and the date. Now make labels and I put the name of the quilt, who I made it for, when I made it, where I was living, what the pattern name is, and anything else special.

MB: So, they now all have labels?

PB: 95% of them have labels.

MB: What about the smaller wall hangings?

PB: A lot of the small wall hangings do. A lot of the table runners I do not label. I want them to be flipped over. I just don't have labels on them. They will get used up.

MB: You don't have daughters. Do you?

PB: No, I have three sons. My first son got married two weeks ago. His wife is a pediatrician, and she does not sew at all. She doesn't do very much cooking. My son does the cooking. So, I doubt if she will get interested. My second son is engaged. I helped his fiancé make curtains for their kitchen. So, she did get into sewing just a little bit, but so far, not too much. I do have a niece. I have a couple of nieces. My youngest sister has two little girls who are eight and ten. They are interested I have gone a couple summers now, and they have done a little bit of sewing. They might. You never know who the bug might bite.

MB: That's interesting. I hope that somebody in your family does continue.

PB: I have four sisters. None of my four sisters even sew at all. One of them tats and knits. I tried to get her to start quilting. She started a wall hanging and never got it finished.

MB: Would you like to tell me some more about the fabric and the batting or the materials used in the special quilt of yours?

PB: In the New York Beauty, like I said, Paula Bosselmann was teaching that. I started with the border quilt. It was just a border fabric. It was a really It was a fabric that I especially liked. Then I went in my drawers, and I pulled out some of the fabrics to go with, but I felt that was so dull, and I went over to Prairie Creek Junction and found a few more scraps. At first, I almost didn't put the blue fabric in, but it really makes it. It gives it spark. It needed that. So, I was glad that I did that. On that, the points are foundation pieced and that's how I got it so sharp. Then the curves were just regular pieces and that was that was the challenge of getting them all together in smooth straight blocks.

MB: Explain a little bit about foundation piece.

PB: In foundation piecing, you have a piece of fabric that is underneath. You are sewing your fabric to it and flipping it. So, you are sewing on the line on the foundation, and then flipping the fabric and putting the next piece on and flipping again.

MB: Sounds difficult to me. Tell me about the fabric? One hundred per cent cotton?

PB: Quite a bit of my quilts are 100% cotton. That one is. When I first started quilting in 1970 practically everything had polyester in it. We were a polyester world in the ‘70's. A lot of my first quilts have polyester-cotton blends that are woven, they aren't the knit polyester, but they are the woven blends. They are in there and you can tell, and they haven't faded as much. They wear like iron.

MB: I can see the difference. What about thread?

PB: I do use 100% cotton hand quilting thread.

MB: And the batting? Or the material?

PB: I like or my favorite batting now--when I first started, I was using Mountain Mist, some of the first ones, of course, had the polyester batting because that's what we were using. Then I used some Mountain Mist Cotton, but my favorite is the 80-20 Hobbs, which is 80% cotton, 20% polyester. It gives it a little bit of loft. It still has the feel of cotton. The battings now are so much better than the old ones because they don't shift after you quilt. They stick together. They are bonded so you don't have to quilt quite as close if you don't want.

MB: Speaking of quilting close, how many stitches do you get to the inch, or do you even want to talk about that?

PB: Well, Linda Maloley counted, and I don't think it is true on all of my quilts, but she said on the raffle quilt, that I have sixteen stitches to the inch that is counting on the front and the back when you count stitches.

MB: That would be quite small.

PB: That is small. I did take extra care when I was making that it was a raffle quilt, and I was doing it for the state, and I wanted to get extra tickets sold so I took extra care making sure I did a good job.

MB: What about your fingers do they get sore?

PB: My fingers get calloused.

MB: Do you have special thimbles?

PB: I just have one. I like the old-style metal thimble. I just use it on my thimble finger. Other than that, I prick my fingers.

MB: Do they bleed on your quilts?

PB: Once in a while. You can see my thumb now. I stuck a needle down my thumb nail. They are just very calloused.

MB: Do you have any other special things you would like to mention in this interview?

PB: I'll tell you when I first started quilting; this is one of my funny stories. When I was in the dorm in college, I lived in an old dorm, so I had these huge old windows, and we had some bright orange and green flowered curtains. It was little, itty-bitty flowers. When we left the dorm, I had these huge curtains, and it was still good fabric. We were living out on the farm, and I made myself an apron with pockets and a zipper on the front, and we had this ringer washer and wash tubs, so I wanted to be able to carry lots of clothes pins in my pocket. So, I had this apron and I made that and then if you go around, you find this same orange fabric again in different quilts. You just go from quilt to quilt, and you say, ‘Oh, there is that fabric again.' So, I do tend to use scraps, and my first quilts were all scraps. They were all scraps from clothing, curtains, left over from sewing other projects. The only thing I bought when I first started quilting was the backing and that was probably, a good share of the time, was muslin sheets because at that time muslin sheets were relatively inexpensive, and they didn't have wide quilt backing anywhere when I first started buying fabric. I bought it out of the Penney's catalog.

MB: Speaking of leftover fabrics what about the denim one you have over here?

PB: The denim one I have over here. I have made several denim quilts and I make them out of old blue jeans.

MB: And your sons actually wore those, or your husband actually wore the blue jeans.

PB: Yes, they are blue jeans that are left over because you always have parts of the legs that do not wear out. You can cut patches and scraps, and there's pockets in certain ones. The one here happens to be a double bed one. I made denim quilts for their bunk beds. Those ended up with marker on them. They had little pockets. They could stick things in them.

MB: I noticed pockets, I don't think I touched it, but I notice pockets.

PB: There is a tee shirt quilt over there. Those are really popular with kids because they can use [shirts.]. There is nothing fancy. Kids usually love them because you can cut up their tee shirts and usually put some kind of a stabilizer on the tee shirt before you put it in the quilt and iron a stabilizer on it and put them together; and then they have a memory of all the things they did in high school or college or when they went on a trip.

MB: Sometimes they bought a shirt but maybe didn't wear it or they grew so fast that they couldn't wear it very long.

PB: So, it is memory quilt for them.

MB: How much of those did you do on the machine? Like the denim?

PB: The denim is totally on the machine. The tee shirt quilt, I pieced it on the machine, but I tied it. Like the old, tied quilts, I tied them with yarn.

MB: Yes, I can see. You haven't tied very many of these that are on display.

PB: In fact, that's the only one that is tied.

MB: One is tied. In conclusion, maybe we could say one thing that you definitely did was that you used scraps.

PB: Yes, I definitely used scraps. That is how I started. I buy a lot a fabric now, but normally when I buy fabric--I buy something now I buy it because I like it. I don't buy it for a particular project. Then when I am ready to make a quilt, I get out a certain piece of fabric that I like and then I start putting things with it.

MB: Do you start with the fabric or the design?

PB: I start with the fabric, and then find a pattern that I like.

MB: Do you find you patterns in books?

PB: I find my patterns lots of places. When I first started quilting, Mountain Mist, they had their patterns wrapped around the batting. I could send in. I had a Mountain Mist Catalog. I had a little paper back, and I could buy my patterns for thirty-five cents a pattern. Very different. Times have changed. Now I get them out of magazines, swap with friends, I buy them at quilt shops, out of books, off the Internet.

MB: I forgot about the Internet.

PB: Going to classes I love to take classes. There is always something you learn in a class.

MB: Peggy, I would like to thank you for allowing me to interview you today as part of Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories. Our interview is concluding about 4:30, on April 15, 2009. Thank you very much. I would like to thank you, Peggy Bruns, for allowing me to interview you today as part of our [Quilters'.] S.O.S. - Save Our Stories.