Carolyn Raimy

NY13464-DAR001

Carolyn Raimy

Jeanne Wright

2011-04-13

Moda Fabrics

Smyrna, New York

Jeanne Wright

Note: Carolyn Raimy is not a member of the DAR. While this is a DAR quiltmaker documentation project, membership within the DAR is not required.

Jeanne Wright (JW): Today is April 13, 2011. It is 10:00 in the morning. I am at the home of Carolyn Raimy in Smyrna, New York. Carolyn has agreed to be interviewed today for the Alliance for American Quilts. Thank you very much.

Carolyn Raimy (CR): Mm-mm.

JW: Tell me about the quilt you brought today that you have hanging.

CR: Okay, it's a Burgoyne Surrounded. I had one that was my Great Grandmother's and when our children were little it was on a bed and our dog ate a hole in the middle of it. I took my Great Grandmother's quilt and put it in a pillowcase, and it took me many years before I got to the point where I could sit down and make a re-make of this Burgoyne Surrounded quilt. I've shown it and I've loved this quilt. This is a great quilt.

JW: You say it took you many years. Of interest or skill or--

CR: Well mostly time for me. I teach quilting and I design my own patterns for quilting and therefore it takes a lot of time. Raising three children who eventually all went to colleges and after they got all done with all of that and were out on their own, I could sit down and do the ones that I wanted to do. This was the first one I did, that I wanted to do because I wanted to do it.

JW: Tell me how it compares with the one you had.

CR: The colors are similar, even today, in 2011, I can find similar color that she had in her pattern. When I finally did it, I found the best one I could. It was a blue background with a little white design on top of it. Now I think we even have better blues that are like the 1875-76 era. I think I could do a better color selection, but this shows, as did hers. I have on the other hand, had it machine quilted. Hers was all hand quilted. Hers was all hand pieced. [laughing.] Mine was machine pieced.

JW: I've seen the older one as well as the newer one and the quilt is exquisite and the time to have it lasted that long.

CR: Yes.

JW: What was the batting, do you have any idea?

CR: I think it is a cotton batting. I think there are seeds in that batting. It's quilted very close. There is cross-hatching in the sashing, you know, is very closely quilted so the batting didn't move very much. I think it was a prize quilt because I think my Great Grandmother must have made this just before her wedding. She was married in 1878 and is certainly, Burgoyne pattern was, it was a centennial of the Burgoyne pattern by that time. So, I think she made this in anticipation of her wedding.

JW: Because it was so closely quilted, it really took a lot of time. Now those women were very busy in that period of history. Why do you think she would have done it? I mean can you surmise why she would have done a quilt like that? Was she perhaps wealthy enough that she had the time?

CR: Well, they certainly had wealth in the family, and they had been an established family from the 1700's in New York State. She came from a long line of hand sewers, and she eventually was a seamstress and I think probably sewing needles were in her hand at all times.

JW: You said, 'Eventually was.' Do you mean after she made the quilt?

CR: After she married and had six children, she became a seamstress. Her husband ran a livery, picking up people at the train and taking them up to their hotels and things like that. This is out on the Finger Lakes. Every one of the children, she had four girls and two boys, and every one of them had very interesting personalities and many of them were artists, musically artists as well, so it was a great family. I think they really had a family life. They didn't have television wasting their time. They played instruments. They did all kinds of things. One of the older daughters, she played fiddle and called at square dances in the community. She eventually became an editor of a newspaper. So, people had lots of vocations back then in their own little communities you know.

JW: Do you think your grandmother made many quilts?

CR: Yes, I know she made many quilts.

JW: Do have any of the others?

CR: Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I discovered, I have a great collection of antique quilts and you know when you have a person who you recognize the stitches, but I couldn't prove to myself that this other quilt that I have, and I'll show it to you today, I couldn't prove it to myself, or you or anyone that it was made by her. I was lecturing on antique quilts and had it out and my hand ran across something, and I looked down and here are her initials on the front of the quilt. So, I have since that time been collecting more fabrics to reproduce that quilt as well, because I think that's what I should do as a great-grandchild. Yeah, that's what I should do.

JW: So that's the only indication that that's her quilt?

CR: Yes. Yes.

JW: Do you put your name on the back?

CR: Yes, I do.

JW: What do you put on your labels?

CR: I put my name, my address, Smyrna, New York, and whatever year it is. That's what I do.

JW: So important to history. When you say antique quilts, you are gathering antique quilts, did that mean family or in general?

CR: In general. Yeah.

JW: Would you say more in this area?

CR: Mm-mm.

JW: Mm-mm. This area.

CR: Right. Many of them came from this area.

JW: Tell me about the special meaning that this quilt you are showing us has to you today.

CR: Well, I feel very glad that I have made this quilt and that I was able to have the skill to do it. I don't think everyone has the skills to produce something that their great grandmother did.

JW: And it's all hand pieced and hand quilted?

CR: Mine is machine pieced and machine quilted.

JW: Okay. Alright. You have an ancestor in the [American.] Revolution had an ancestor in the American Revolution.

CR: Oh yes. Oh yes.

JW: So, this was the bicentennial? The centennial.

CR: It was the centennial of the Burgoyne Surrounded quilt and his, and well in 1777 Burgoyne lost the Battle of Saratoga here in New York State, near Albany. He was surrounded by these little country people who wanted to hold on to their state. So, he was defeated, a British General was defeated there.

JW: You said [before the interview.] that you knew some things about him? What were some of the things you knew?

CR: Well, that day, he was waiting for General Howe to come up from the Philadelphia area to meet. The idea of the Battle of Saratoga was to separate the New England states from the rest of the states. So, Burgoyne was waiting for Howe to come, and he marched ever so slowly, maybe a mile or half a mile a day with his army of 5,000 men. But that gave all the Colonialists the chance to realize what was happening and form in an area where they were willing to do battle. Whoever the powers that be, decided not to tell General Howe to march up so Burgoyne was on his own against a group of people who really wanted to hold onto their land. They surrounded him and this pattern has unified that. This is what it is about. It is about surrounding the General and keeping your land. That's the most powerful thing anyone can do. [laughs.]

JW: Tell me about a specific thing that ties you and your ancestor together. You told me how tall he was.

CR: Well, he was 5'2", yeah, yeah, and I am as well [laughs.] on a good day. [laughs again.]

JW: What do you think that someone looking at your quilt would conclude about you?

CR: That she likes antique looking things. I live in a very old house, and I like things that go in that old house.

JW: How do you use this quilt?

CR: I display this at this point.

JW: Mm-mm.

CR: I guess I wouldn't be willing to put it on a bed for another dog, [laughs.] dog to find. [laughs.]

JW: And that's what you want to do is just to display it?

CR: I do, display it, mm-mm.

JW: Tell me about your interest in quilt making.

CR: Well, I've always sewn from the time I was a little girl. However, I was always in classes that kids were going to college and therefore you went to college, and you didn't take homemaking. But my mother fed my interest in fabric and yarns and all of those things. I just thrived on it. I just wanted to know how pieces went together and I think quilting is all about pieces. I had a grandmother who kept me busy by doing picture puzzles with me and I think picture puzzles are like putting quilts together as well. So how the piece fits and how it looks and what it should have in it and the colors and all of those things, the women in my family kept me busy. I think I was a child that needed to be kept busy. [laughs.]

JW: Do you have any idea what age you were?

CR: I started sewing at nine.

JW: Mm-mm and from whom did you really learn to quilt? Who sat down with you and said OKAY Carolyn this is the way to go?

CR: Absolutely no one.

JW: Okay.

CR: I just did it by observation.

JW: Nowadays how many hours a week do you quilt?

CR: Probably 25, maybe 30, depending on the challenge I'm working on.

JW: We are sitting in your studio, and I see there's one beautiful quilt--and I'd like to have you tell us about it--that isn't completed yet. But first, how many quilts do you not have finished that you wished you had finished by now?

CR: Boy that's a hard question because I think as a quilter you always have unfinished quilts, quilts that just haven't told you how to finish them yet. I do commissioned work, so when I finish a commission, I give myself two or three days to work on my own things before I'm into another commission and then I am totally engrossed in whatever I'm trying to produce for them. So, I don't know. I'll bet you I have ten.

JW: Mm-mm. But you intend to finish them?

CR: I will finish them, should I live so long. [laughs.] In fact, I just finished one. When did I, I finished one in the Spring of last year that has been hanging on for a long time. I entered it in a show, and it took second place, in a national show. So, it pays to wait and have it do just what it needs to do.

JW: Let it talk to you?

CR: Yeah, let it talk to you.

JW: Tell me about the one we saw when we first came into the studio.

CR: Okay, it's a quilt made from a wedding dress. This is the second quilt made from a wedding dress that I have made. I do not add any other fabrics, other than what is in the dress and the lining or the slip or the tulle. This was a very plain dress and a very small dress. So, I needed to make it look, as a quilt, make it look as interesting as I could. When I looked at the dress itself it looked very Victorian to me. So, I have gone off in a direction of what a Victorian fan quilt would look like. I have made a center medallion of several; I think there's thirty-six wedges. Then I will put her train, the lace from her train, I will put around that, making a medallion. Right now, it looks pretty plain in the field in the center. But in order to put the medallion together in the middle I had to cut four pieces of the wedding dress up and be able to set the medallion in the middle in that. That's just an amazing thing when it actually lays flat because you have to keep the straight of grain and wedding dresses are all based on bias. The skirt of the wedding dress has to flow and therefore it's on the bias and you have to find where the straight of grain is and cut your pieces from that. It's been quite a job and it is as big as it is. I think it's 45 [inches.] by 45 [inches.] at this point.

JW: How will you finish it off?

CR: I will be putting the train lace; I will be putting it around the outside edge if I can make enough straight edges. Then I will back it with pure white muslin of a very fine grade, and I will tie this because I don't feel you should put a batting in the, because I think the batting would gather enough moisture to turn it yellow and it's very white. This particular dress is very white. It has some very interesting laces on it. I'm happy with it so far. It's been a very big tension builder. [laughs.] Oh, and I will tie it. I will tie it. Quilts that I've had from my history, my family, that have been crazy quilts, they tied, and they put a ribbon, a bow behind every tie. It makes it very interesting on the back and I intend to do it again with this quilt. I did it with the other. I don't know who had the idea of ever making a quilt out of a wedding dress, but it certainly is, it's certainly interesting and I go to bed sleepy, very tired, exhausted. [laughs.]

JW: Have you seen other quilts tied with a bow on the back or it is just a family thing?

CR: No, I've never seen anything like that.

JW: Have you ever used a quilt to get through a difficult time, you personally?

CR: No, not really. I have, no not an emotional time.

JW: What about an amusing experience, something that just cracked you up at some time in your career.

CR: Well, when you are teaching quilting, it, you know, everything comes up in a class and we all learn from it, and we all have a good laugh over it. I wish I could remember any one item. Usually, my classes are very open and giving and we usually have a lot of success. But I can't think of one particular, light-hearted, it's always light-hearted. When somebody makes something and sews it in the wrong direction, you know, you have to rip it out. I think my students take great joy when they see me using the ripper and ripping things out. But if you're going to make a quilt you're going to rip out. [laughs.]

JW: What do you find most pleasing about making a quilt?

CR: When it's done. When it's actually done.

JW: And done to you is at what point?

CR: When the binding is on, and the sleeve is on the back. That's when the quilt is done for me. I do label them. Yeah, I do label them. I sign my, I actually embroider my name on the back in a color that's very similar to what's on the back so that it's hidden really and it's always in a corner and it is always embroidered.

JW: So, this is in addition to the label?

CR: Yeah. This is right. So even if you took the label off, my name would still be on there. [laughs.]

JW: What do you not like about quilting? What's the part that you really dread?

CR: I don't know that I have a thing that I don't like about quilting. I like the whole process.

JW: Do you belong to any quilt groups, guilds?

CR: Yes, I belong now to a very small guild. It's maybe twelve women and we get together very haphazardly. I think some of them get together every Wednesday. I don't do that. It's up in Hamilton. [New York.] But this weekend I'm going to join them for a four-day weekend at the library, the public library. The library up there has a large space and we rent that for a whole weekend. People from the community come in and visit and see what we are doing. That's when I do things I really want to do, not things I have to do. So that's a good time for me. It's liberating. We do it twice a year.

JW: Now what do you think about technology? How has that affected your work?

CR: Oh. Greatly. I am a left-handed person. It hasn't been, but through recent years when there are left-handed scissors. So, when the rotary cutter and the ruler came out, it opened the door for me because I could grab that rotary cutter and cut. That has helped me a great deal, a great deal. I have nothing but left-handed scissors here in my studio so if you thought, if it was any more difficult to cut with right-handed scissors when you are left-handed, I can't imagine. So, when people come here and they are right-handed and they cut with my left-handed scissors, they, 'Oh, this is terrible.' And I say, 'Yes, it is.' [laughs.] Yes, it is. Yes, it is terrible. [laughs.]

JW: It's good for your children, not taking your scissors.

CR: And they are all right-handed, all of our children. And my husband and I are both left-handed.

JW: What are your favorite techniques and materials?

CR: I usually work exclusively in cottons. I'm falling in love with wool batting, washable wool batting. I think it's just adding a perfect loft to, if you've ever hand quilted with a wool batt, you never go back to cotton. You make finer stitches, and the needle just slides through. So, I don't know, that's what I like.

JW: One hundred percent wool?

CR: One hundred percent wool. Well, it's washable so it must have something else. It must have twenty [percent.] poly in it. But it really lofts beautifully. It makes your stitches look so fine. You really ought to treat yourself to one of those.

JW: What's your favorite color?

CR: Well, I don't know.

JW: The first thing that pops into your head.

CR: Well, red, red pops into my mind. I don't know if that's always true but--

JW: Do you find you use red in your quilts some?

CR: Some. Yeah, yeah, I do use red. I like a scrap look. When I first started really thinking about quilting, I was primarily a weaver. When I came out of college, I graduated from the School for American Craftsman at the Rochester Institute, all in textiles. I was exposed to all kinds of things. When I finally honed down on quilting, I decided that I was going to do little pieces and they were going to be all hand quilted and hand pieced. Now I'm machine quilting and machine piecing. [laughs.] I have evolved into the next thing.

JW: Tell me about your studio here, where you work and create.

CR: Well, it's a small barn. My husband and I, we'd start our house and then eventually attack the barn. I have a lot of windows, a lot of light exposure here. It's mostly barn siding on its side so it's all very woody looking in here. I feel comfortable just nailing something to the wall if I want to. I have a lovely big countertop. I think it's twenty-eight feet long. I have little drawers underneath with all kinds of hidden fabrics. I'm very comfortable out here. The countertops are at my level for cutting. I have a smattering of all kinds of artistic looking things around. [laughs.]

JW: I don't see a big quilt stash.

CR: They are in the house.

JR: In the house. Okay. So many they wouldn't fit?

CR: Well, they store better in the house because it's a better temperature. The barn is heated by a little kerosene heater which takes the air from the outside and heats it and gives me heat to the inside and exhaust to the outside and I have no kerosene smell. I just push a button and the heat comes on. So, when it's dormant up here, when we are not using it, it gets kind of moist and everything and I don't want them to mold so they live mostly down in the house. I work up here.

JW: How many quilts do you have now?

CR: Probably a hundred and something.

JW: Ones that you still have?

CR: I think I have forty-five antique quilts that I lecture with. I'm always collecting them. So that changes too.

JW: What do you think makes a great quilt?

CR: I think design makes a great quilt. I've also made some very modern quilts and they've sold very well. But when I revert back to doing what I want to do, I kind of do all over scrap quilts. That's what I started liking in the beginning was scrap quilts [laughs.] and I didn't have a stash of fabric, which is not a problem now. [laughs.] But didn't have a stash so I was not able to make more than two or three colored quilts.

JW: So you want it to be authentic scraps? You don't want to go to the store and cut up material?

CR: Well, I add to it. When I go to the store, [laughs.] yes, I do add to it. [laughs.]

JW: What quilter doesn't?

CR: Oh gee. It's hard to drive by a store, a quilt shop.

JW: What do you think makes a quilt artistically powerful?

CR: I think it's the design. You know yourself when you go to a quilt show there are just a few of them that stand out. They are not always the ones that have ribbons on them. There is a quilt that speaks to everybody at a quilt show. There should be a quilt at every quilt show that is just like the kind you make, whatever level you are at. But there are usually, these two-color quilts are very dramatic and if well pieced, there is a difference. You can tell. You are attracted to those. In fact, the first thing you said to me was, 'Oh my goodness. Your points all meet!' That is what we all criticize. We all walk up and look at the points and, oh, if there's one that didn't it would show up to all of us like a sore thumb to all of us as quilters. So, yes, it's the dramatic ones. Sometimes it's color but sometimes it's skill.

JW: What do you think makes a great quiltmaker?

CR: Somebody who has enough personality to override all the other stuff that goes on. [laughs.] You have to have--inside me there's this fire to do this, you know? You have to have this want to do this because there are so many other distractions in the house. You could dust and clean; you could do whatever. It's not going to say on my tombstone that I was a great housekeeper. But I like to cook for my family. I make bread and I can, and we grow huge gardens here. Yeah, I do all of that, but when I come out here to my studio, the fire inside myself makes we want to produce. I don't do other people's designs. I design my own things. Then, when it actually works, isn't that a treat? Sometimes it doesn't work. [laughs.]

JW: Are you drawn to anybody, any other works by other people? Do you have an artist, let's call them, that you are drawn to, that would inspire some of your quilts?

CR: No. No, I really don't think I, I think I was raised to have my own independent art ability. When I went to School for American Craftsman that's what you did. You flourished on your own. You produced on your own and you became confident on your own, whether it was silk-screening or tie-dying or any of the other things. From all of those things when people come to me with their projects, their commission pieces, they start talking to me. I take all that information in, and I try to design for them a quilt that represents what they are trying to tell me. Sometimes they give me T-shirts from a mother who passed away or sweatshirts. I received fifty-five sweatshirts one day in the mail and it was from two daughters whose mother wore the sweatshirts and they wanted quilts made out of them. Well, there are lots of people making quilts out of T-shirts and sweatshirts, but I felt it was an honor to do, so I did that. But that's what doing commission work is all about, you know, to try to make something that fits into the other person's personality and with whatever personality you have. Therefore, you have to be pretty well versed in different sewing abilities. I have sewn for people for years. I've made wedding dresses. I've made prom dresses. Now I'm taking them apart and making quilts. [laughs.] Goodness. Who would dream? I don't know. I worked as a seamstress for Emily Lawrence Limited down in Norwich [New York.] for years and I did all their alterations. There was a men's shop in Norwich and their tailor fell and broke his kneecaps and couldn't work and they called me. I hemmed men's pants during the January sale where you got a suit and two pair of pants. Excuse me, that was a lot of sewing. [laughs.] Yes, I have. I've done it all. [laughs.]

JW: What do you think about machine quilting versus hand quilting, the actual quilting?

CR: I had watched, over the years, I love hand quilting. I think I have done my last hand quilted quilting job.

JW: Because?

CR: Because my arthritis in my thumbs is getting so bad, I can't really hold a small needle or any other size needle. So, I've been putting quilts together by machine for a number of years and sending them out to be quilted by machine. Through my eyes I am saying that people don't really care if its hand quilted anymore. I think that's a terrible thing because if you had some in your history and you saw how beautiful they are and how beautifully their wear, there's no comparison. But the buying public is happy to buy them machine quilted.

JW: Mm-mm. Mm-mm.

CR: And I'm sorry to see that happen, but I know that's the evolution of quilting because in this racing day world that we live in, nobody has time for anything else. So, you make them. You take a class, you make them, and you send them to somebody who will run over them with a machine and believe me, that is getting more artistic. What it used to be and what it is now is phenomenally different. There's a vast difference in machine quilting today. There is just no comparison to hand quilted quilts. If I am asked to put a quilt in--the Earlville New York Opera House up here has a gallery of space, and they ask me to put quilts in there. If I put a hand quilted quilt in there, someone always calls me to tell me how beautifully quilted that is and how wonderful that is because it is different from all the rest because it is hand quilted. But it's the last of the hand quilting for Carolyn. [laughs.]

JW: Have you ever tried machine quilting yourself?

CR: Yes.

JW: Not with a long-arm?

CR: Not with a long-arm. Nope.

JW: Tell me your impressions.

CR: Of the long-arm?

JW: No, of machine quilting, your machine quilting.

CR: Well, it doesn't reach my standards. My own machine quilting I doubt would reach the standards of which I'm trying to show. Nine times out of ten when I send a quilt to a gallery or to a museum show, I have, they never criticize my artistic ability. They never criticize my color management. They never criticize any of my piecing. But they'll criticize the machine quilting. There's loop stitches or something in the back and I've paid somebody to quilt it. It isn't mine. I get points knocked off because of the quilting done by machine. People are very critical of what goes on the back of a quilt, just as they are on the front. I've always laughed and said, 'Well, that's why it's a second.' [laughs.]

JW: Are you an appraiser or a documenter at all?

CR: No. No, but I do, when I go to lectures people bring in quilts and I can pretty much tell them about the date. I've been around an awful lot of quilts. I study it. I like to study the colors and the fabrics. I have a great stash of antique fabrics because people drop them off here on their way to Florida to live for the rest of their lives. Their grandmother said to take care of this box of fabric, so it ends up at my house.

JW: Do you use it?

CR: I do. If there is somebody who has a quilt that has a problem, I can pretty much find the fabric to repair that. I never take their pieces out. I put a piece over.

JW: Mm-mm.

CR: You could always undo what I did, but nine times out of ten you're not going to find out where I did it, because that should be matched pretty well.

JW: Have pictures of you or your quilts or your patterns ever been published?

CR: Published only in local newspapers. Or like when I lectured in Wisconsin, they had it in the local newspaper. Not published in magazines or books.

JW: Have you ever worked in a quilt shop or owned one?

CR: Yes, I've worked in a quilt shop for years. In Hamilton, New York, which is near Colgate University, there was a restored village called the Americana Village and it had a quilt shop. It started a quilt shop after I joined up with the, let's see, what was it called, the American, let's see, Americana Village Artists and Craftsman. It was an organization that promoted crafts people and artists and they would have a big fair once a year. I think it was always in September. I started taking my weaving there to sell and then eventually they took over the village. It was a bunch of little restored houses that were taken there. They were not on foundations, so they had a lot of problems, but they had a little general store. They eventually put in a quilt shop. Then I used to help with the buying of the fabrics. I was there twice a week. Then I taught on Saturdays there in the restored village. I would come out after everybody had left at 9:30 at night. I would come out, there are no streetlights in a restored village, so there would be skunk families walking past my car and boxes of all, you know, we were out in the country. Yeah. I did that for about twenty-five years.

JW: What was the best part and what was the worst part, working in the quilt shop?

CR: I loved it. It was very hard not to buy one of everything that was there. It was an old--it had been a general store, so there were objects around there, nice old antique objects around there and I loved all that. People would come in with their interesting projects. They could be parked there for two and half or three hours selecting fabric. Eventually that village was sold to a conglomerate. So, we took our horse and pony show down into the village of Hamilton and then the parking was--you couldn't park there for more than 25 minutes or something. I know of no woman who could make a decision about a queen-sized quilt in 25 minutes. So, the parking tickets were phenomenal. Then we would buy the parking tickets because we thought, for heaven sakes, all these people need a chance too, so that was a very poor location. Eventually it moved down to a lady's house and that was sort of the end of it. I mean it just dwindled on its own. But I've taught in a lot of quilt shops too.

JW: And you teach outside? [your area.] You travel when you do this?

CR: Yes. Yeah.

JW: How far?

CR: Well one time it was in Wisconsin, but that was visiting a friend. Warsaw, Wisconsin I went there although she lived in Colby.

JW: So, you teach technique.

CR: Mm-mm. Yep.

JW: A variety?

CR: A variety of techniques. I think there were fifty-seven different, I think it is fifty-seven different kinds of classes. You could take appliqué. You could take hand piecing. I developed this quilt that's here today, this appliqué quilt, from my own design. I teach from my own designs. When I was asked to do appliqué, I said, 'Well there are really a lot of different kinds of appliqué.' So that's what I did. I incorporated all the various kinds of appliqué that I know of into this one quilt. I made two and I sold one. I have one that I hand quilted that I'm not about to sell. [laughs.] You know, it's a double-bed size, I think is what it is.

JW: It's gorgeous. I've seen both the patterns that you use that you've drawn and the result of the quilt. It's gorgeous.

CR: Thank you.

JW: I didn't know there were that many kinds of appliqué.

CR: Mm-mm.

JW: So, thank you for that.

CR: There are so many.

JW: Why is quilt making important in your life?

CR: Well, I just really enjoy doing it. I just have a thrill working with fabric. I've always loved working with fabric. You know, it's pleasing to me, no matter what. Sometimes it's frustrating and sometimes it's very difficult. With a wedding dress quilt you have this much [indicating a small amount between her fingers.] fabric and you're going to make that. You don't get to slice it up wrong the first time and then try to make something out of it. This is it. Somebody trusted you with their wedding dress that they got married in it thirty years ago. Now they have decided to have it come out of the closet so people can see it. Somehow or other you are supposed to get the personality of the quilt back into this piece of fabric. That has been a great challenge and it's tiring to be on that side of your brain for long. [laughs.]

JW: Mm-mm. But rewarding for you.

CR: Yes. Absolutely. When it actually comes together, I am so excited. This happens to be a good day because the border went together very well yesterday. [laughs.]

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

CR: Well, I think quilts are American life. You know you made a quilt, when I think of how we live and our, one of our children lives down in North Carolina. We can call her on the phone. You made a bunch of quilts and gave them to your daughter, and she got on a wagon train, and she went where? You never knew what happened to her. If she didn't know how to write she never got a letter to you. You never knew what happened. So, you sent with her your love by all these beautiful quilts, you sent them along with her and some scraps of fabric so she could make quilts and off she went. You know, it's mothers and daughters and grandmothers. I've actually had two male students. My husband says, 'What does that guy do?' I said, 'Well I'll ask him.' I was teaching at the Cooperative Extension here in Norwich and I said, 'I need to ask you what you do for a living.' He said, 'I'm a truck driver. I sit in my cab waiting for a load for days. My mother showed me how to sew and I wanted to make some quilts while I'm sitting in this truck because I'm not interested in other things that truckers are interested in.' I think that's a wonderful thing. Then you think, sure, that's a good thing. There's a collection of quilts in Earlville, New York that were made by a man in the Civil War while he had nothing to do or no one to shoot at. He was making quilts. Because everybody gets cold. You have to do something. If you want to make something attractive you cut it up in small pieces and join it back together, which is what a quilter does. She takes a large piece of fabric, and she cuts it up into small pieces of fabric and then she sews it back into a very large piece of fabric. [laughs.] Somehow, I get excited by that.

JW: Spouses don't understand.

CR: No. No. But he's [her husband.] a woodworker and we are all working with geometric shapes, so we work well that way.

JW: How about the truck driver? Have you seen any of his quilts?

CR: I've never seen any of his quilts.

JW: Not pictures?

CR: No. I've never seen any of his quilts. He must live local down there. I've never seen any of his quilts.

JW: What about preservation? How do you think quilts can be or should be preserved for the future? I would say, use them now and enjoy them, show them, love them, or let somebody in the future use them, show them, love them?

CR: I know what I did when I loved my great grandmother's quilt. I left it on the bed and my dog ate a hole in the middle of it and it took me several years to make one just like it. I was sad to say the least. But what should we do with our quilts? The way I preserve my quilts is to put them all in individual pillowcases which are old and have washed a number of times. I wash them inside out and dry them inside out in the dryer, those pillowcases, and then I put my quilts on the inside when they are right side out, hopefully removing anything that a mouse might find intriguing in the smell or anything. I very often just rinse in vinegar and water so there is absolutely no cosmetic smell of perfumes or anything to attract their attention. I store them, piled one on top of the other. I change the pile regularly. I get my quilts out and put them on beds. I have two bedrooms now that I don't use, and they might have several quilts on them. Right now, they don't because we are expecting people for the holidays. But they lay flat there in the pillowcase. I am preserving them. I'm hoping that any of my children will be interested in them. [laughs.] My own daughter doesn't sew. [laughs.] But you never know. It might happen. You never know.

JW: Do you have any tips or advice for beginners?

CR: Start out small. Don't think you are going to make a queen-size or California king. Your grandmother made a three-quarter bed-sized quilt and that was a large undertaking. Now two of those together would make a California king-sized quilt and that's where we start. So, if you start out small and you find out you like it, then you're home free. Otherwise, you frustrate yourself by making something so large and unmanageable. It gets away from you. It takes a long time when done well.

JW: What do you think is the biggest challenge confronting quiltmakers today?

CR: Well, I don't really know. I'm sure finding the time, finding the time. I very often take a hand project into the house and sit when I'm watching television with the men or something, but we have very, a great many distractions in this world. We have a great many distractions, telephones, televisions, all kinds of iPods and every other thing. Luckily for me cell phones don't work in my area. [laughs.] So, I don't even have one. [laughs.]

JW: Other challenges that you, see?

CR: As far as people? I don't know. No, the people I see are all, you know, interested and are quilters for the most part.

JW: What do you think makes a quilt appropriate for a museum or special collection?

CR: I would look for extremely good use of color. I think you could put all kinds of colors together, but if it's dramatic and it has to be unique. It can be similar to a design that you've always done, but it has to be unique, and you've seen some of my Log Cabins. They don't look exactly like other Log Cabins. So, and people, all men who come here with their wives, if there is a Log Cabin quilt on the wall, they walk up and they say, 'Is this a, this is like a Log Cabin quilt.' All men know that pattern. It's an amazing. I think it's funny because there are so many other quilt patterns, but all men can recognize the Lob Cabin quilt.

JW: Mm-mm. Do you in our last few moments have anything you would like to add?

CR: Well, I think that getting back to men, I think that men feel very comfortable with quilts. I lectured at the Norwich Hospital. The Auxiliary had their fundraising and they asked me to come in and show some of my antique quilts. There were many men standing in the background which turned out to be doctors, who came up to me when it was over and said, 'My grandmother made me a quilt.' And that's the best. Yes, that's the best.

JW: Well, I'd like to thank you for doing this interview today for the Alliance for American Quilts. Our interview is now concluded [at 10:45 a.m.]. Thank you very much.

CR: Thank you. That was great.

Interview concludes.