Judy Reubush

Judy Reubush

VA22801-007

Judy Reubush

Darlene Fiske

2003-04-26

Del Thomas

Harrisonburg, Virginia

Evelyn Naranjo

Darlene Fiske (DF): This is Darlene Fiske. Today's date is 26 April 2003. It is 1:23 p.m. and I'm conducting an interview with Judy Reubush for Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories, a project of The Alliance of American Quilts. We are in the Virginia Quilt Museum, Harrisonburg, Virginia. Now, Judy, would you like to tell me about the quilt you brought today, or whatever it is that you did bring?

Judy Reubush (JR): I brought a quilt that I don't know a whole lot about the origin. I just know that when I was a little girl my mother had a quilt box at the top of the stairs of our two-story home where she lived for sixty-two years.

DF: Where did she live?

JR: In Boones Mill, Virginia. And in her quilt box she had quilts that had been made by people in her family that belonged to her parents that her brothers and sisters had when they were little. She was born in 1900. So I know that this quilt is one of the quilts that came from that quilt box, I don't know exactly the origin, but it's very different.

DF: Do you have any idea when it might have been made?

JR: I really do not.

DF: Was it in the late 1800's or early 19's--

JR: I would assume it was early 1900's. There were, however, in the same quilt box, (I am from a family of seven children.) and when we cleaned out my mother's house when she was almost 90 years old, there were enough quilts in that box for each of the seven children to have one from her home. Most of them were wool quilts, but I like this one because it is different and it is made out of cotton and it is quilted with black stitching. Part of it is black, but the parts of it that are pastel colors have the black stitching which I thought was kind of interesting.

DF: It shows up.

JR: It shows up more.

DF: You said something about some of the quilts were wool. Were they tied or were they quilted?

JR: They were tied, but they had the fancy stitching on each seam--

DF: Sort of like a crazy quilt

JR: Yes

DF: Only they were

JR: a pattern

DF: yes

JR: They were pieces, rectangular pieces of wool that I got the impression from my mother, were made from samples that salesmen carried around for men's suits in the late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds.

DF: How 'bout that.

JR: My mother's only sister died when she was only six years old and my mother was three so that would have been in 1903, and one of the quilts was made for that child and had her name embroidered on it and so each of my siblings have one of these quilts that came from my mother's quilt box.

DF: Did you mother has more than one sister?

JR: The one that died is her only sister.

DF: There were two of them.

JR: Well, then, she had five brothers.

DF: Oh. [laughs.]

JR: So all the brothers had quilts and she seemed to have ended up with most of the quilts out of the family, perhaps because I am from a big family also. It was interesting that all these years we knew those quilts were there and I think some of them were made with army blankets in them or something really heavy, because we used to laugh and say that once you got in bed, you couldn't turn over, because the quilts on the bed were so heavy.

DF: Or you had so many quilts, comforters.

JR: Yes, because we had no heat in the upstairs of the house when I was a little girl except what came up from the downstairs, so we actually used the quilts, but these, particularly the ones made out of wool, would never wear out. I don't think. So that is why I brought this. That's why I brought this because I always grew up with quilts.

DF: Well, Alma had a quilt in here that had stitches very similar to this and they looked like they were double thread, but it wasn't. It was single thread. It was a very heavy thread. And it was made in about 1900.

JR: I think this is a Churn Dash pattern, isn't it?

DF: Looks like it.

JR: Yeah.

DF: And the black is either that or the Monkey Wrench.

JR: It could be that too, and they are just all mixed up solid colors, which is unusual for a quilt.

DF: Well, at that time of the century, they were using anything that they had and everything like flannel.

JR: And it has flannel. It is obviously lined with something quite heavy.

DF: Well, it's not going to slide off. It's going to be there.

JR: Yes, it is very heavy. Of course, I have never put it on the bed. Her quilt box was lined inside with a print fabric that was probably on it as long as I can remember it from the time I was a little girl. And the outside was also covered in a print, like a chintz sort of fabric.

DF: Yes. Was the box a wooden box?

JR: It was a wooden box, but to make it prettier. She also had a wooden chest that was made with pegs that came from the family and that had some quilts in it.

DF: Was it all wooden?

JR: It was. It was a beautiful piece of furniture.

DF: Was it cedar?

JR: No, I think it was probably walnut. Just the chest. But that was from the family also. But this quilt box always had things like the quilts and then it had some old clothing in it as well. You know the corset cover kind of things and things from the early 1900's. Things my mother would have worn as a teenager. She didn't get rid of very much. I still have some of those things because I can't bear to get rid of it them either.

DF: Well, they tell a story.

JR: Yes, they do.

DF: How women used to dress and how we do today. We don't even wear a girdle let alone a corset.

JR: Quite, quite different. My mother always got up early in the morning and put her stockings on before she came downstairs as long as she lived, she did that. Made quite a difference.

DF: Makes a big impression on the children too.

JR: Yes.

DF: How the older people do. Well, what inspired you to quilt? And what inspired you about this quilt? I think you already told me.

JR: As I said, I grew up with quilts, but I sort of took them for granted. And after I was a young married, I didn't think much about quilts. And then, after we moved away from Virginia, and we would come back to visit, my mother had joined a quilting group at the church. It was just a group of ladies to raise money for the emergency, First Aid and Red Cross.

DF: Now what year was this?

JR: This would have been in the late '60's and '70's. She by then had retired and she would go and help put the quilts on the frames and then she would help fix food, and, you know, it was a group that met every week at the church.

DF: Sounds like a sewing circle.

JR: It was like a quilting group. They weren't from her church. They were from the little town and I saw some of the things that they quilted. She had a good friend who was an excellent quilter. I said, 'Well, I would like a quilt.' And she said, 'Well I'm sure Minnie Murray would make you one.' So she made one for me. It was a double wedding ring and I had it quilted by the group at the church so that's sort of one of the treasures. And then later I had her make another one. She said it would be her last quilt, Mrs. Murray, because her eyesight was not as good and she couldn't do it anymore.

DF: Well, and she probably didn't want to do something unless she could do it well.

JR: If she could not do it well. She loved to show off her quilts. She had one she called her insanity quilt. The pieces were the size of a postage stamp. She had thousands of pieces in it, but it was a scrap quilt. At that time I was busy with raising children and so on, but then when my husband retired and I stopped teaching and we moved to Florida. I decided that I would go to this quilt shop and take a class. I had always been sewing, but never had done any quilting. And I was hooked and so from then on I have done quilting on my own.

DF: Well, now, this piece here, do you think there is any dyed fabric in that, any hand dyed fabric in that?

JR: I would guess that this might be dyed.

DF: The blue or all of it?

JR: Probably all of it, but I don't know. Like I say, it is not in wonderful shape, but

DF: It was before your time [laughs.]

JR: It was before my time. This would have been there before I was born.

DF: So it used to be they had to dye to get different colors so--

JR: Yes.

DF: It could be.

JR: I also have an aunt that quilted on my father's side. She used feed sacks. She had no children so for nieces when they graduated from high school she made each of us a quilt and she made them out of feed sacks. I know my older sister's was hand dyed, but mine was not. Mine was made from prints.

DF: That was nice when those came along instead of just the plain white with the big logo on them.

JR: Yes. My sister's is made similarly to mine, but it is a hand dyed fabric.

DF: Well I think you have answered this next question about what special meaning this quilt has for you.

JR: This represents my family's stability and my childhood and growing up in a family that didn't throw things away, I guess. Very different from today.

DF: Well, we have become a throw away nation, but we didn't used to be.

JR: No.

DF: Very conservative and saved everything.

JR: Yes

DF: Why did you choose this particular quilt to bring today?

JR: Because it brought back memories, I could talk about older things past my time and that would give more of a history of quilting.

DF: Well, how do you use this quilt?

JR: I just display it. It is so old that I feel like it's not really something to use.

DF: Do you keep it on a bed, or do you hang it or what?

JR: I have it hanging on a rack and refold it frequently so that it is not exposed to sunlight or anything. I've had it for about twenty years now.

DF: And what are your plans for this quilt?

JR: Well, I have three daughters, so I have enough quilts for each of them. I have collected a lot of quilts on my own, in fact, I brought this one. I don't know the origin of this one because I bought it, but it is such a pleasant, fun quilt. I am sure that this one was made in the '30's judging by the bubble gum fabric.

DF: Yes, and this green.

JR: And there is, and I know that the pattern for this was published in a farm magazine, because someone in the quilt field, whom I took this to show, said, 'I've seen that pattern.' And it was the pattern that her mother had. And she had a quilt like this, but hers was worn out and she was going to try to duplicate it. And, interestingly enough, one of the blocks is set upside down or sideways, and I wonder if that was on purpose, because they thought.

DF: Nothing's perfect.

JR: Nothing that man could do should be done perfectly, only God's work.

DF: Was it set on the side or upside down?

JR: Let's open it so we can see it. [pause for 14 seconds.] I don't see it now.

DF: Not when you are hunting for it you won't.

JR: Well, anyway, one of them is not set--

DF: Why don't you just set it across that bar there?

JR: in the right direction and I just always wondered, and everything else about it is done so well that now, oh, here it is, you can see it right here. It is sideways.

DF: Oh, well at least it is not upside down.

JR: Since everything else is done correctly.

DF: It could be that it is that one block so it is not perfect.

JR: That one we bought at a sale. I have probably bought twenty quilts that would be considered antique, not terribly old, but in the '30's so I have enough quilts.

DF: But with this quilt then you plan on giving it to your daughters?

JR: One of them will have it. One of them already has a quilt from her other grandmother, and that grandmother also gave my husband and I a quilt as a wedding present which was, at that point, an antique.

DF: But this quilt would be a great-grandmother wouldn't it?

JR: It was the great-grandmother on the other side, so we actually have three family quilts and I have three daughters.

DF: So that works out fine.

JR: Plus the ones that we have collected.

DF: Are they interested in quilting?

JR: None of them have time, but they all love the quilts and at some point, perhaps, will have the time. One daughter has done pieced clothing.

DF: Well, when did you start quilting?

JR: Actually not until my husband retired and I had time.

DF: Which was?

JR: 1988.

DF: Okay.

JR: So I have not been quilting very long.

DF: So you've been quilting probably twenty years. Well, you've been doing a lot of quilting in that time.

JR: I did bring the first quilt that I made. Well, it is actually the second one that I made, but the first one that I quilted. I lived on Anna Maria Island after we retired in Florida and there was a lady there from Lichtenstein who had lived in America for about 20 years. She came as a nanny and then stayed. She had been a commercial seamstress in Germany and loved quilting. She just wanted someone to quilt with. So she just organized a group and she was a wonderful teacher. She actually helped design the quilt pattern on this. She showed me how to do appliqué, showed me how to do Broderie Perse, helped put the colors together.

DF: Well, you did a good job. So did she? I am looking at the quilting here.

JR: She was a wonderful inspiration because she always made you feel that you could do it.

DF: Now what kind of batting do you have in this?

JR: It's just a--

DF: Commercial?

JR: It's a very light loft, a low loft, because--

DF: [inaudible.]

JR: It was an interesting thing to do, and I started off with just the center, it's a diamond in a square, and I started off with that. I was going to make a little wall hanging and then it grew because I liked what I was doing

DF: Well, that helps.

JR: And I brought the latest piece I did which will show you what a difference in color. I don't think my quilting is as good as it used to be

DF: Well, it looks to me like it is just about the same. Very tiny stitches, yeah.

JR: But certainly colors and motifs, and so forth have changed. The different kinds of thread.

DF: Metallic thread

JR: There's metallic thread and beading.

DF: It looks like it's gathered.

JR: It just gives you a sort of dimension. It's a Mary Sorenson pattern. I took a class at the Houston International Quilt Show two years ago from her, but then she started this piece in that class.

DF: The little bead

JR: Anyway, that just sort of brings you full cycle from totally plain churn bash fabric with black quilting to metallic and beaded and very bright colors and the change.

DF: Okay, so that will stay in the family, you hope. You plan on it.

JR: I think most of my quilts will stay in the family because I have granddaughters that love quilting.

DF: Why are you interested in quilting?

JR: I've always wished I could be an artist, but I can't paint at all, or at least I don't think I can. Most of my family is creative, they either write poetry, or they can paint, or do things. To me this is a very creative expression.

DF: So you use your needle to do your learning.

JR: To use color and this sort of thing. To me this is just very wonderful therapy. It is very rewarding. Even if I don't finish a piece, the process of deciding what to do and what colors to use and touching the fabric

DF: Getting it all together--

JR: Yes. I can't go in a fabric shop without touching everything. [laughs.]

DF: You need a pair of white gloves. [laughs.].

JR: Well, at least one of my daughters said, 'Well, we can leave now. We have touched everything in here.' [laughs.]

DF: Well, I think you have pretty well answered the question of history with quilting. You grew up with it. And how you learned to quilt was from the lady in Florida.

JR: I actually took a class at a quilt shop first.

DF: That was the first time you had ever tried quilting.

JR: Right and then from there I got into the group.

DF: This piece that you showed us. And your first memory of a quilt?

JR: Was probably on my crib when I was born. I mean they were always there, so I don't remember.

DF: From the time you can remember anything, you remember quilts being in the home.

JR: Right. I have quilts on all of my beds in my own home.

DF: Well, then, here's a question that is going to sound kind of funny to you, but, are there other quilters among your family or friends?

JR: A lot of friends. I have a sister-in-law who quilts and my sister did quilt.

DF: But she doesn't quilt now?

JR: She passed away last year.

DF: Sorry to hear that.

JR: She could do anything, well she refinished furniture and did anything like that, upholstered furniture, made curtains, just whatever, but she always said, 'But I can't quilt.' And I said to her, 'Of course you can quilt.' She would come to visit me, and I would show her how to do paper piecing. This is when she was 75 years old. And she was much better with that in six months than I ever was. It wasn't something I enjoyed that much. She did learn to hand quilt. She made a couple of quilts.

DF: Well, if she was a seamstress, she could probably hand quilt.

JR: Yes.

DF: Or did she piece? Did she hand piece?

JR: She did not hand piece, but she did beautiful embroidery work and then incorporated those things.

DF: What kind of quilt related activities do you do? Writing, teaching, exhibitions?

JR: I'm a member of a local quilt guild and have helped with the quilt show and I have done some teaching, quilting with children, as a public-school volunteer. Not at this place, but in Florida. I have shown friends how to do things, but I have never been a teacher or professional writer.

DF: Well, sometimes the others are just as good, if not better. Because you are more down to earth and can explain things a little bit better than someone that is so professional who feels like they know it so well that you should too.

JR: Well, I don't really want to be involved to that extent with time commitments at this point in my life. I would rather do something that when I want to do it and on a volunteer basis.

DF: What do you find pleases you about quilting?

JR: The choice of color and design, and the way colors put together, and textures. Creates a vision if it works or it doesn't work. I have an antique quilt hanging on the wall of my sewing room that is little baskets. Mostly it is pastel colors from the '30's and there are 3 of them that are dark. It just hits you in the face as mistakes. And to me it is fascinating how things will work or they won't work. Sometimes you don't see that until you take a photograph of it.

DF: And how much different they look pieced and in a piece.

JR: Yes.

DF: What aspect of quilting do you not enjoy?

JR: Actually, I don't enjoy hand quilting anymore because it is so time consuming and there are so many things that I want to do that I am not very patient at that. So, to finish hand quilting of queen size quilt is tedious to me at this point in my life.

DF: Well, how do you balance your quilting with family and friends?

JR: I try not to go in my quilting room and shut the door. [laughs.]

DF: And not come out. [laughs.]

JR: My husband has understood that someone asked him once, 'Well, what do you get out of her quilting?' And my response was, 'He gets a happy wife.' And he backed me up on that. You know, if I spent all of my time quilting, he would not be happy. But he knows that it is rewarding.

DF: Well, I think it is kind of like everything else. You have to balance it out with something else. You can't do one thing and be happy with that because you are missing out on too many other things.

JR: Well, there are too many things I really enjoy doing like playing the piano and being with people, and gardening, and reading, and you know, I have many, many interests. I am not a one-interest person.

DF: One item. Well, I was going to ask how your family handles the profession, but I guess you just answered that. You told me your husband understands.

JR: He does now. At first, he would say, well why do you take a perfectly good piece of fabric and cut it up in pieces and then take time to stitch it back together.

DF: Quilters are the only people that do that.

JR: But now he understands that.

DF: What do you think makes a great quilt?

JR: When the pattern or design and the colors and the fabrics all work together to make it look like it wasn't cut apart and put back together. It just works out.

DF: Comes out a picture.

JR: To be a perfect picture. It doesn't have to be a picture design, but, you know, piece quilts can be the same because they can be just as beautiful.

DF: What makes a quilt artistically powerful?

JR: Probably the color.

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

JR: That would have to be the work involved and the craftsmanship and also how well preserved.

DF: Now when you say 'craftsmanship,' what do you mean by that?

JR: The crazy quilts that we have as a part of the permanent collection here at the Virginia Quilt Museum are just superb craftsmanship, the stitching, the concept of the different pictures, and the needle work, and they are in such a wonderful, preserved state, even though they are over 100 years old. That certainly, then, qualifies it to become a museum's.

DF: What makes a great quilter?

JR: I think someone who can probably get the quilting idea of putting it together as far as making it flat, making it fit together in a way that is pleasing to your eye and yet it looks simple. It is done so well. 'Oh, that must be easy', you think, until you try it. [laughs.] And then you realize what skill is involved.

DF: How do great quilters learn the art of quilting and especially how to design patterns or choose fabrics and colors?

JR: I think a lot of it is trial and error and you get better because I feel I am a lot better than I was 5 years ago to 10 years ago with choosing colors and I am a little more bold in my ability to look at something that is not at all alike or colors that I would not have put together. More daring. Sometimes it doesn't work, but I have also learned to accept the fact that that didn't work.

DF: Do it again.

JR: Right.

DF: What makes a great quilter?

JR: Humble. I think because great quilting certainly is an art form.

DF: Is quilting an art or a craft?

JR: It's an art, no question about it. I mean even the basic stitching; quilting is an art form because beautiful quilting is absolutely exquisite.

DF: Well, I think too, something that makes a great quilter, like you said, is one that is humble, but I think they also have to want to do a good job, to do their best.

JR: And they always want to go beyond what they did in the last one. That's why I brought the first or the next to the first one and the last one because they are so totally different.

DF: There a design.

JR: Acceptance of what the art of quilting can do. As you progress you don't stay with nine patch all your life.

DF: You improve if you keep on quilting.

JR: And you've got to try new things, you can't just

DF: And you have to improve, just with practice.

JR: Yes.

DF: Why is quilting important in your life?

JR: Because it's an outlet, a therapy, a source of satisfaction I make new baby quilts that will be treasures for, I hope, long after I'm gone.

DF: In what ways do your quilts reflect the community or region?

JR: I've moved around so much that is hard to say. [laughs.].

DF: Well, I notice that you have flowers. It seems like flowers are, and you say you like gardening.

JR: I do. I like gardening. I also love music though and sometimes I like critters. The last one had a dragonfly.

DF: Well, there's critters over there.

JR: I have lived in California, Texas, Florida and Virginia so I can't really say my quilting reflects one area. I feel that I have the influence of a lot of different areas.

DF: Well, I, could it be in color?

JR: Probably in color.

DF: The beach area would have a different color, a different basic color.

JR: Yes. And probably a little more toward being adventuresome in color. I mean putting teal and purples together is not necessarily something you do in southwest Virginia, but it works.

DF: Well, the mountains, look at the mountains.

JR: And you look at the spring flowers. You see that God put all those roses.

DF: All those colors

JR: and pinks and oranges and purples.

DF: He didn't separate the blue and the purple and put a white in between or anything.

JR: And yet if you go into old neighborhoods that have white and pink dogwoods, both of them show up much better because they are not all of one color.

DF: Yes, because there is a contrast.

JR: Right.

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

JR: I am so happy that the art of quilting has become, once again, something important and that a lot of people are learning to do it. And they're not just old people that don't have anything else to do. They are young people and all ages and all levels of educations, all levels of interests in life. That's important.

DF: And in what ways do you think quilts have special meaning for women's history and experiences in America?

JR: Well, I suppose because we wrap our babies in quilts, maybe.

DF: And ourselves.

JR: And ourselves.

DF: Don't you think if you really think about it, that quilts sort of held the families together particularly because of the women going west took quilts, working on quilts?

JR: My cousin who lives in Topeka, Kansas, has a quilt that her grandmother took with her to Kansas when they went in the late 1896 or something--

DF: From where?

JR: From Virginia. It would have been the Roanoke Valley area. She is an only child, and she has no children, so that quilt is to go to her niece who is not married and has no children either, so where it goes from there I don't know. Her mother lived to be 100 and it was her mother's quilt until she died, and this cousin now is in her 80's, but things like that have certainly preserved. She will pull it out and she knows the whole history of who made this quilt and how they fit into the whole family genealogy.

DF: Well, do you think that the quilts that were made for the Underground Railroad, do you think that has anything to do with its history?

JR: Oh, yes. And, as you say, the covered wagons that went across the country that took the quilts with them.

DF: And the things that they used to make the quilts.

JR: Well, my older sister, she was 12, years older, she could look at quilts that my mother had pieced but never finished and say, 'Oh, I remember when I had a dress made of that piece.' I mean, I don't remember that because my mother did not still when I was big enough to remember, she didn't have time to quilt any more. But my older sister could say, 'I remember this piece and this piece', and so it brought back memories of clothing that she wore, and I am sure in many cases that was the way.

DF: How do you think quilts can be preserved for the future and what has happened to the quilt that you have made [inaudible.]?

JR: It bothers me that I don't think the quilts that we are making now will survive as well as the ones, this one that came out of my mother's quilt box. Like this one, the black is still just as black as it could be. I made a doll quilt for my daughter to put into a doll crib that she had for display that black faded within a year, it was grey. It had faded within a year. Where this black is still totally black. So, I don't think our dyes are going to hold up. I think because we now want to display our quilts, they are not in a quilt box and are more exposed to light. So, I am concerned that we're not going to be able to preserve them as well. I mean, we know better about how to do it, but I don't know that we succeeded. We know not to put it in plastic.

DF: You do have to wash them sometimes. They have special detergents.

JR: This one needs to be washed, but I am afraid to. This one is so old I just wouldn't do it.

DF: They have special detergents and things now you can use on quilts. It is better than soaps that we use for regular clothes in the laundry, which helps to preserve them a little bit.

JR: I think that most of my three girls will treasure the quilts and I know at least some of the granddaughters that I have made quilts for treasure them as things that they will always keep. They are taking good care of them. They are not using them for beach blankets. [laughs.]

DF: Or the dog box [laughs.]

DF: Okay. How do you think we can encourage quilting in young people today?

JR: Well, I think the Museum is doing a good job with that with their children's classes. I think the quilt guild can do that by sponsoring education programs in the public schools. I think I am doing a good job because I have taught at least three of my granddaughters to sew and made at least small quilts with them. And even my one little grandson, I kept him a week while he was six, we worked on a Crayola quilt that he absolutely would not stop until he had finished the last of six squares. He was thrilled to death with that, and he wants to spend more time with me so he can make another quilt. So, I am trying to do my part to pass along quilting.

DF: Well, the lady with the, she said it is an add-on of the vest type things she puts, what's her name?

JR: Lee?

DF: She belongs to the guild.

JR: Maybe I didn't see her.

DF: Well, anyway, there are more things that are quilted than just quilts.

JR: I love doing pieced clothing. That is really something I enjoy.

DF: We have quilted vests.

JR: I have several jackets.

DF: And tote bags.

JR: I haven't done any tote bags, but I have made things for children as well.

DF: There are a lot of things that are quilted that we don't even. I don't think we realize it's quilting.

JR: Right. For Easter I made my Texas five-year-old granddaughter an Easter dress out of pillowcases. The pinafore was made from probably seventy-five-year-old pillowcases that had cross-stitch in pink with handmade embroidery, lace that was on the edge of the pillowcase, but now it's on the bottom of the pinafore. Her mother tried to explain to her that this was very old, and that Grammy had made it for her and be very, very careful. At the same time, I sent her a dress that I had bought. It was just a knit that she can wear to school to play in. She said to her mother, 'Why did Grammy buy me a dress?' The mother said because she loves you. Well, she said, 'Well, why did she buy me a dress?' and she said, 'Well, she thought it would look cute on you that you would like it.' and gave her all these reasons and then finally she said, 'Well why didn't she make it, why did she buy it?' To her, I am the sewing Grammy. What I make for her she treasures.

DF: Well, it is good that her mother is teaching her to treasure it. Well, what do you think the future of quilting in America will be?

JR: I think with lots of things it is cyclical and that we have a real upbeat feeling about quilting and we need to try to maintain that, but there will be something that will probably come along and surpass it, but that people like us can always maintain it [inaudible.] and with all the new wonderful fabrics, it is exciting, and notions and gadgets and gizmos and so forth.

DF: Well, Judy, our time is almost up. Is there anything else you would like to add?

JR: No, I don't think so. We talked about a lot of things.

DF: We put a lot of years into it, as you know.

JR: For me I have really enjoyed it very, very much and I have tried to pass that feeling of pleasure on to people that I have given quilts to. I am selective of who I give quilts.

DF: I think most people that quilt are due to the fact that they know what it took to make that quilt.

JR: And you want to be sure that the person that receives it appreciates it and respects it.

DF: Well, I want to thank you, Judy, for allowing me to interview you as part of the Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories project, and if you have nothing more to say, our interview is over, and I appreciate your time.