ID number: TQ.2015.022
Name of interviewee: Valerie [Mhairi] Matheson
Name of interviewer: Gilly Thomson
Name of transcriber: Take 1
Location: Valerie’s home
Address: Inverness
Date: 20 May 2015
Length of interview: 0:10:14
Summary
Mhari talks about her ‘Five Starts’ quilt, made to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Purely Patchwork shop. It also marked a new challenge for Mhari as it was a small quilt, the beginning of a love for miniature quilts. She talks about starting to quilt in the 1960s, then boredom from a broken leg led her back to quilting in the 1980s. Mhari also talks about her great-grandmother’s shop, where she made wedding dresses and other whitework, and how the skills her grandmother learnt there were passed on to her. Later Mhari talks about her quilting routines, likes and involvement with the Miniature group.
Interview
Gilly Thomson [GT]: Right. It is now recording. Okay. This is Gilly Thompson interviewing Valerie Matheson. ID number TQ.2015.O22. This is in Valerie’s home in Inverness on the 20th of May, 2015. Right, Valerie. Would you like to tell me about your quilt? It’s called ‘Five Stars’, is that right?
Valerie Matheson [VM]: Yes, that’s correct. It was made as a challenge from Purely Patchwork where I had done all my classes, and I had made several larger quilts, and this challenge came in for small quilts where they were all to be about the same size. So I decided, in my ignorance, to use a shimmery, iridescent fabric, plus two, three cottons. I also chose the Jacob’s Ladder design to do this, cut it all by rotary cutter, and sewed it all by hand, and then pieced it together on the machine. The quilt turned out to have five stars, so I called it ‘Five Star’ and congratulated Purely Patchwork on their five-year birthday celebration.
GT: Uh-huh. And the colours of it are pink.
VM: The colours are a soft green, mottled type of pink, and a black iridescent fabric with green and pink colours within it.
GT: Mm-hmm. How do you feel about the quilt?
VM: I was very pleased with the quilt, because this was my first transitional quilt from doing large quilts to piecing a smaller quilt, and it was a turning point in my life because from there on, I started making quilts smaller and smaller, mostly by hand, until I have reached the present stage where I am doing miniatures only, and in fact, in the past 20 years, the majority of quilts I’ve made are miniatures only.
GT: Uh-huh. So you’ve been quilting longer than 20 years.
VM: I’ve been quilting… the first things I quilted were back in 1960, when I was doing a soft furnishing course, and I quilted a bedhead for my bed, a bedspread, entirely in crosshatch, but they were all three layers with wadding. And I also made a flounce for the dressing table. After that, I didn’t do any more of that sort of stuff until about 1985, and what triggered me off then was that I had my leg in plaster for seven weeks, and I wasn’t able [clears throat] to do anything too much, and I was very bored. So I got somebody to go to the attic, bring me down all my furnish, er, different fabrics, and I started a hexagon quilt. Hexagon, pentagons and diamonds.
GT: All hand-stitched?
VM: All hand-stitched, over paper.
GT: Uh-huh.
VM: Yep. [interruption]. And, um, it’s still in the making. It is finished, the top is finished. I have bought the wadding and the backing, but I haven’t put It together yet, and I have now decided that I’m… after being in Harrogate at the AGM, I’ve now decided that I’m going to tie it instead of quilt it.
GT: Right. Yeah. Very good. So are there other quilt makers in your family?
VM: None at all. Absolutely none. All sewers. My grandmother was a white worker. She did white work in her mother’s shop, where they made bridesmaids’ dresses, wedding dresses, veils, trousseaux and layettes for babies [talking over each other].
GT: Where was the shop?
VM: In Glasgow [interruption]. In Glasgow. And, well, that was my great-grandmother’s work [interruption]. My grandmother was actually a music teacher, but she used to go in at the weekends and help her mother with the sewing, and it was my grandmother who taught me to sew when I was very young [clears throat]. Yes.
GT: Mm-hmm. And what are your preferred techniques in quilting?
VM: Um, I would say appliqué, piecing, hand-work. I don’t use the machine a lot except for joining blocks. I would prefer to do most work by hand. I enjoy embroidery. I like piecing pieces of work together and then embroidering over them. I like doing crazy patchwork, but I would say that my absolute favourite is appliqué and doing miniatures.
GT: Mm-hmm. What technology do you use when you’re quilting?
VM: Technology in the way of rulers?
GT: Whatever you use, yes. I mean, you use a machine.
VM: I use the machine. I use a rotary cutter, rotary mat. Rulers [interruption]. And an unpicker. These are about all I use. I don’t have a lot of gadgets. I don’t use a lot of fancy rulers. I have a bias ruler and a scalloped edge ruler, and that’s about it.
GT: Mm-hmm. Right. And how much time do you think you spend quilting?
VM: A day? Well, I would say that every time I sit down to have a cup of coffee, or after my lunch, I pick up my sewing and do some, yes. I, I was, I sew every day. Sometimes for longer periods, other times not.
GT: So you enjoy sewing and quilting [talking over each other].
VM: I enjoy sewing, yes. That’s my, that’s my hobby. Always has been.
GT: Uh-huh. And when you’re out and about, what, what do you look for, or notice in other quilts?
VM: In other quilts?
GT: Mm-hmm. If you were at an exhibition, say.
VM: I admire contemporary quilts. I admire the arty quilts, but I don’t have any desire to sit down and do them. I prefer to wander among the traditional quilts, and the old one, the old quilts, if there’s an exhibition of old quilts, I like to look at them, and often I can pick up a pattern from a block or a corner, reduce it to miniature and use It at another date. Mostly I would… I might photograph, a complicated pattern, but mostly I just draw it on a piece of paper at the time, and then, move on to colour it at a later date.
GT: Mm-hmm [inaudible] Good. So you, you’ve won prizes for some of your miniature quilts, haven’t you?
VM: Yes, I have. I, I’ve got a… I took a First for a, a large Baltimore, and I had another one abroad that came back with a prize. It was a wall-hanging. And I’ve had several, several prizes, firsts, seconds, and thirds for my miniature quilts. Probably about ten in all, or maybe more. I couldn’t really tell you what number.
GT: Mm-hmm. Well, that’s very good. They, are these all at the Festival of Quilts, or different exhibitions?
VM: Um, two of them came from the Festival of Quilts, one… the rest are from Grosvenor and mostly Grosvenor.
GT: Mm-hmm. But you’re a member of The Quilters’ Guild, and the, the Miniature Group within that? [Talking over each other].
VM: Yes, yes, and I also do the challenges each year that are set by the AGM [talking over each other].
GT: For miniature quilts. Oh, oh [talking over each other].
VM: And I’ve had one or two Firsts and Seconds from them too.
GT: Uh-huh.
VM: And also we did a round robin this la… er, two years ago. 2013, I think it was. Yeah. And six of us, from, from the Region 16 did a round robin for the Miniature Group and, er, we ended up taking First, Second and Third prizes.
GT: Excellent, aye. Very good.
VM: It was very exciting, that.
GT: Yes, uh-huh. Yes, they’re good fun to do, aren’t they?
VM: Yes, they’re great fun.
GT: They are.