Jan Cook

Jan Cook

IA51101-002

audio

Jan Cook

Tomme Fent

Jean DeFrances

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<title>Interview with Jan Cook, October 4, 2008</title>
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<series_name>Quilt Alliance’s Quilters' S.O.S.- Save Our Stories Oral History Project: Siouxland Samplers Quilt Guild</series_name>
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<interviewee>Jan Cook</interviewee>
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<title>Touchstone quilt</title>
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<partial_transcript>My name is Tomme Fent, and I'm here interviewing Jan Cook for the Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories Project. It is Saturday, October 4th, 2008, and the time is 11:42 a.m. So, Jan, thanks for allowing me to interview today -- Tell me about this beautiful quilt that you've brought for your touchstone object.</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>The basis of the touchstone quilt is an unfinished Flower Garden quilt top that Cook's mother inherited from her own mother and then passed along to Cook.in, loosely, the mid-seventies. In the early 1980s, when Cook was doing a lot of quilting, she started turning pieces of the quilt top into gifts for relatives. She regretted that later, around the year 2000, and became determined to find a way to preserve the part of the quilt top she had left. She designed a new quilt, using twelve of the remaining quilt blocks, a scanned photograph of her grandmother, and reproduction fabric. Cook outsourced the machine quilting of the piece to another quilter. The original quilt top was made with hand-stitched blocks in, probably, the late 1930s Cook does not know her grandmother's approach to piecing, but suspects she made templates, which she thinks would have been the usual approach in her grandmother's location (North Dakota). Cook has none of the other quilts her grandmother made and is unaware of any others that may have survived.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Aunt Grace Simply Charming (line of 1930s reproduction fabric);Barb Heetland;Flower Garden (quilt pattern);inherited quilt;International Quilt Festival;Quilt design;Quilt tops;Techniques</keywords>
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<time>334</time>
<title>Other quilters in family</title>
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<partial_transcript>Well, are there other quilters in your family?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>A sister of Cook's, who is about five years older than her, quilts and runs a quilt shop. She started quilting well before Cook did and was an influence on Cook's decision to take up quilting. Cook's family did not use quilts while she was growing up, so her first experience with a quilt was being given the quilt top from which she made her touchstone quilt when she was, roughly, in her early twenties. Cook started quilting the year her first child was born, 1980. She learned quilting by taking a class and made her child a Log Cabin quilt. Cook learned to sew as a child and made clothing for herself and her family, so quilting seemed like a reasonable next step to her.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Family;Learning quiltmaking;Log Cabin - quilt pattern;quilt shop;Sewing</keywords>
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<time>550</time>
<title>Use of touchstone quilt / Time spends quilting </title>
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<partial_transcript>How do you use this quilt?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Cook displays the touchstone quilt on a wall. There is, in Cook's view, no obvious heir for this quilt, as all her children are boys and none of them has married. She says, "that person hasn't come into my life yet, it's, it's, who's going, to inherit this quilt." [At this point, the interview is interrupted, while the interviewee, apparently, takes a phone call, but the audio keeps going.] Cook typically spends about six hours a day, five days a week, quilting, but that is largely because she has a long arm sewing machine and quilts for other quilters. She admits to having little time for her own work. Cook does not have a particular type of quilt she prefers to make, but prefers to match the pattern with the person for whom she makes it. She is using simpler patterns for baby quilts now than she used to. As of the time of the interview, she is making a wedding quilt from a Judy Niemeyer pattern. As far as fabric goes, Cook likes "novelty prints" for the myriad of baby quilts she makes for her family. She also likes batiks and "various fabrics" that "just catch [her] eye."</synopsis>
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<keywords>fabric selection;Judy Niemeyer;Long arm quilting machine;Minkee;Quilt patterns</keywords>
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<time>799</time>
<title>Machine quilting / Sewing space / Fabric stash</title>
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<partial_transcript>Do you make your quilts, all by machine?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Cook describes herself as "a real, um machine gadget girl." She sees handwork as "tedious" and "slow.." She is putting off work on the wedding quilt she is making, because it involves a lot of applique. She has not yet decided whether she will do the applique by hand or by machine, although she admits that she is unlikely to get it done if she tries to do it by hand. Cook works in a basement area that was enlarged from an empty bedroom. She keeps her sewing machine, long arm machine, and fabric there. Cook has a fabric stash, but considers it to be relatively modest in size. She collects fat quarter bundles, but then cannot figure out what to do with the fabric, so ends up buying new cloth for her projects. She organizes her fabric by color and is considering buying additional shelving for it.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Fabric stash;Hand applique;Machine applique;Work or Studio space</keywords>
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<time>975</time>
<title>Involvement in quilt guild / Quilting classes</title>
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<partial_transcript>Uh, are you involved in a quilt guild?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Cook belongs to the Siouxland Samplers Quilt Guild. Before her current volunteer position in Special Projects, she was the Vice President responsible for arranging for programs. She took over that role very shortly after becoming a member and for that reason found it "very challenging," but she learned a lot about who is available to do programs. In her current position in Special Projects, she coordinates the making of raffle quilts and the raffles themselves. She has also coordinated the making of one quilt for a charity and is currently involved in the creation of another. After taking her first quilting class, Cook moved to another state and became involved with a weekly quilting bee at a Baptist church, where she learned to hand quilt (although, in the end, she did not stick with hand quilting). She moved again to an area with a quilt shop and a quilt guild. She took some classes in that location, over the fourteen years she was there, before moving to the Sioux City, IA area.. </synopsis>
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<keywords>Baptist church;Flower Basket (quilt pattern);Quilt guild;Quilt Purpose - Fundraising;quilting bee;quiltmaking classes</keywords>
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<time>1203</time>
<title>Own designs vs. patterns / Use of computers and technology</title>
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<partial_transcript>When you get ready to make a quilt, do you like to, do your own designs or do you use patterns?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>For the most part, Cook likes finding her patterns in books. She has, however, experimented with creating her own designs on Electric Quilt, a computer program. She also uses computers to scan photographs to use on quilts and uses a "computerized embroidery machine." Her touchstone quilt is called "Charlotte's Flowers."</synopsis>
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<keywords>Electric Quilt;Quilt patterns;Technology in quiltmaking</keywords>
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<time>1295</time>
<title>What makes a great quilt / How to preserve quilts and quilting for the future</title>
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<partial_transcript>What do you think makes a really great quilt?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Cook believes that "what makes a great quilt is the story behind it" and that awareness of that story can make the quilt much more meaningful. A great quilter is one who has "a passion for [her/his] art." In regards to preserving quilting, "this project" [Quilters' S.O.S.- Save Our Stories] is one method of preservation. Other approaches Cook recommends are promoting practice of the "hand arts" in general; individual quilters making quilts for family members (in the hope that it will result in those people seeing quilting as important and possibly carrying on the tradition); and the teaching of sewing in schools.</synopsis>
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<time>1392</time>
<title>Teaching quiltmaking classes / Hand quilting vs. machine quilting </title>
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<partial_transcript>Have you ever taught any quilting classes?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Cook has taught a few classes at a local quilt shop, including classes on paper piecing and photo transfer. When asked if she thinks that machine quilting and hand quilting should be in separate categories at quilt shows, Cook says yes. In her view, hand quilting is an art form, that is very beautiful, but in some danger of being lost. Machine quilting, on the other hand, is in the process of "becoming an art in and of itself." Since the two types of quilting are, to her mind, different art forms, they should be "separated, and, um, and valued on their, their own merits." When asked about the difference between a quilt that has been quilted on a home sewing machine and one that has been quilted on a long arm machine, Cook says that she has "seen some beautiful work" produced on both types of machine. What, to her, does make a difference is whether the person who does the quilting is or is not the same as the person who did the piecing.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Hand quilting;Home sewing machine;Long arm quilting machine;Machine quilting;Teaching quiltmaking;Techniques</keywords>
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<time>1542</time>
<title>Role quilts play in our society today / Role of quilts in women's history</title>
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<partial_transcript>What part do you think quilts play, what role, in our society today?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Cook is not entirely sure how to answer the interviewer's question about the role of quilts in society today, but suggests "they're still looked at as, um, uh, just a functional, um, a functional unit in our society..." She adds that, while she thinks it is true of the Midwest, she is less sure it is true of more southern areas with warmer climates, and quite sure that quilts do not have a comparable role in foreign countries. She thinks this may be a reflection of relative wealth, since both fabric and sewing machines cost money. Cook thinks quilts were important for the history of women in America, specifically. Her touchstone quilt illustrates this as her grandmother's first home after she married was a sod house. She says, "they pieced quilts together, did it, to make blankets, so that they could be warm." Nevertheless, women, including women travelling west via wagon trains "made their quilts beautiful." Cook suspects that much the same was true of quilts in the lives of European women, but does not know enough about quilts in Europe to be sure.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Quilt history</keywords>
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<time>1758</time>
<title>Next thing in quilting / Favorite and least favorite aspects of quilting</title>
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<partial_transcript>What's, the next thing for you in quilting? What, what do you want to learn, weth-, where do you want to go with your quilting?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Cook wants "to develop [her] own quilting" next. During the four years prior to the interview, she has spent considerable time "learning the long arm machine, quilting for other people, and learning that part of quilting." At the time of the interview, her goals are to spend more time working on her own projects and to create a legacy for herself. She would like to do more to design her own work, but her understanding of her own abilities is that she will still need to find a design in a book, and then tweak it, so that it becomes hers, rather than designing her quilts from scratch. The parts of quilting that Cook particularly likes are planning a project and machine sewing. The part she likes least is binding.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Quilt design;Techniques</keywords>
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<time>1894</time>
<title>Making quilted items other than quilts / Small quilting group</title>
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<partial_transcript>Do you make any other types of, quilted items, besides quilts? Do you make any, clothing or home dec items?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Cook has made some quilted "table toppers." She has also made several quilted jackets and exhibited them in quilt shows, but has so far failed to make any that actually fit her. She has also made a number of quilted bags, but has pretty much stopped doing that, except for other people, since she already has as many bags as she needs. Cook belongs to a small quilting group that meets monthly. She finds its projects challenging, "because they force [her] into, a, um, an area that I probably wouldn't necessarily go." Both projects she describes involve starting with fabric (and, in once instance, maybe other items) and then creating a quilt from it, so require the type of designing from scratch that Cook does not think she is good at. </synopsis>
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<keywords>Quilted clothing</keywords>
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<rights>All rights to the Quilters' S.O.S. -- Save Our Stories (QSOS) oral history project, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred from the Quilt Alliance to the University of Kentucky Libraries. Please contact the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History regarding rights pertaining to individual interviews.</rights>
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