ID Number: TQ.2016.034
Name of interviewee: Joan Adams
Name of interviewer: Victoria Martin
Name of transcriber: Kim Harvey
Location: NEC, Birmingham
Address: Harrogate, North Yorkshire
Date: 12 August, 2016
Length of interview: 0:53:04
Summary
Joan introduces her ‘Owls for Charlie’ quilt, made for her grandson to use in imaginative play. She made the quilt from a design in a magazine and talks about using a patterned batik for the fabric, using words in the quilting and making it quickly while he’s still interested in playing owls. Joan has been quilting since retirement and initially had aspirations of making a Durham wholecloth quilt, but has been too busy making quilts for grandchildren and for Quilts for Comfort, who distribute quilts to teenage cancer patients. She also talks about Festival of Quilts, the people who inspire her and the challenges of quilting with arthritis.
Interview
Victoria Martin [VM]: [Interview introductions] Okay Joan, would you like to tell me a bit about what you have brought with you?
Joan Adams [JA]: I have brought this little owl quilt which I made for my grandson Charlie who is two and a half, who is very much into owls at the moment. And he’s constantly pretending to be an owl. And he says ‘you be Mummy owl, I’ll be baby owl’ and I’m flapping around the room. And I’ve seen this pattern, I remembered seeing this pattern of these quite large scale owls sitting on a tree and there is definitely a parent and a baby owl there, and I thought, I’ll make that for Charlie and that can be the owl’s nest which we’re … cos otherwise we are constantly simulating owls’ nests with piles of cushions and things. So I made it fairly quickly before he went off owls, and it’s been great fun and it gets dragged around and it gets put on the floor and it’s just a piece of, well I suppose a toy in a way, it’s just a bit of fun and I enjoyed making it.
VM: So when did you make it exactly?
JA: I guess I finished it oh about a month ago, a month, six weeks ago.
VM: So Charlie is two and a half?
JA: Yes two and a half.
VM: So he comes to play with this at your house?
JA: Yes we do childcare, we look after him 3 days a week while his Mum works and so we always try to find ideas for things to do in the house. But he now initiates quite a lot of imaginative play and the owls have been his idea, and actually he’s getting on for two and 3/4 but he is very into imaginative play and he’s very into Peter Rabbit and of course there is an owl in Peter Rabbit, so that is really, I think why he’s quite into owls so much.
VM: So where did you get the pattern from for this and did you make any changes?
JA: Well I remembered that I had seen a pattern and I could not remember where, and I am a bit naughty with quilt magazines, I buy more than I really ought, I don’t know what ought is but I do get a bit tempted by quilt magazines. I searched and I went through all my magazines and I found it and I think it was in Quilt Mania, a special child’s edition which I sometimes pick up in France as well and I really ought to have checked that last night before I talked about this but I’m pretty sure that’s where I found it and so I just set about making it.
VM: How did you choose the colours cos…?
JA: Very much based on the patterns and the owls are orange and turquoise so I had some bits of turquoise fabric and some bits of orange fabric and I think I just supplemented them with a couple of fat quarters as you do, but the trunk is in a batik and I did buy that it’s got a kind of leaf pattern on. I’m not someone who’s used batik a lot so that was quite interesting and because it is raw edge applique blanket stitched I had to, I didn’t know what the fraying would be there was a lot of starching before I cut it out, I think it has worked reasonably well.
VM: So tell me a bit more, describe how you actually made it?
JA: Well there is quite a large tree trunk on one side of the quilt with the owls sitting on a branch that goes out from that and swirls around and this parent owl is sort of looking fondly at the baby owl whose eyes are I would say closed. There are a few leaves on, it doesn’t have a lot of quilting on, again that was a time issue, I’ve outline quilted the large shapes and then a friend gave me the idea of instead of quilting the background, just putting ‘twit twoo’ and ‘hoot hoot’ at the bottom and that is all the quilting that there is, so they are those two phrases are quilted in thread which matches the background and really that was all there is to it. I managed to find some owl fabric for the backing and there are no borders, there’s just a binding, I really enjoyed making it. I love machine applique and I just really enjoyed tackling something with such very big pieces. I hadn’t ever done this tree branch before. Am I talking too much?
VM: No, not at all
JA: The tree branch and the pattern you did in three parts but I didn’t want to do that at all so I got greaseproof paper and traced the three pieces and put them together so I cut out this tree branch which is what, must be over a metre, or a bit more. [VM: Yes, probably] So that was fun and then I you know there is a lot of prep a lot of it goes together quite quickly.
VM: So you mentioned starching, I don’t understand…
JA: Well, some people like it, some people don’t but if you starch the fabric before you cut it out, especially if you are doing applique or anything that might be on the cross grain of the fabric it tends to cut down the fraying, the tendency to fray, so it’s a technique I use, spray starch. Just don’t get it on the kitchen floor cos it makes it slippy. So I starched quite a bit of the fabric before I cut it out for applique.
VM: and then do you turn the side under or is it…?
JA: No it is raw edge applique so it’s just put on to double sided like the Blue Peter way of double sided sticky tape although it’s not tape, it’s Bondaweb and you draw the shapes, cut out the outline roughly and then put the Bondaweb on the back, iron onto the Bondaweb, peel the backing off and put them on to the main piece of fabric.
VM: Oh right so you use Bondweb for attaching it in places?
JA: I use Bondaweb yes, there are different kinds of Bondaweb, some I like better than others. One has a sort of hatch pattern on the back, I don’t like that, that shows through sometimes on coloured fabrics, and sometimes I window the big shapes, you know so you cut out the shape in the Bondaweb but then you cut the middle of the Bondaweb out so that you’ve just got the outline of the shape and the whole thing isn’t too rigid.
VM: I see what you mean, yeah. So has this all been done on the machine?
JA: Oh yes, bar the hand stitching of the binding on the back, it’s all done on the machine I do a lot on the machine. I don’t have very good hands, as you know, I’ve got a bit of arthritis and you just have to look at them to see, so I do as much as I can on the machine.
VM: Have you always or has it changed?
JA: No, I’ve always used the machine as much as I can really as I’ve not been quilting for very long. It’s not the kind of stuff I’d envisaged I’d do when I first heard about quilting I thought I would I be hand stitching hexagons and doing Sanderson Star’s and it would all be terribly, terribly traditional, you know, and then here I am doing huge owls and really enjoying it but there we are.
VM: So what sort of machine do you have?
JA: I have a Bernina 750 I’m very fortunate, I had an, I’m sure people aren’t interested, but I had one of these insurance policies that matured and so I treated myself to a Bernina 750 a couple of years ago. And then of course because you can’t move it I absolutely had to buy a smaller Bernina to take to class, didn’t I? So I am a walking advert for Bernina. Yep, so that’s the kind of machine that I have. 750’s got quite a big throat so you can get quite a bit of fabric through it. I’m very lucky to have that.
VM: And do you have any special type of foot on the machine when you are doing this sort of work?
JA: Well, I like to do it I like to do blanket stitch and actually some this is just zigzag for speed on the outside, yes some of the applique is just with a zigzag which is quicker than blanket stitch. I like an open toed foot because I can see where I am going, it’s probably not technically quite correct because it’s not the formal zigzag foot but I like that, so there you go.
VM: How long did it take you to make this one?
JA: Oh I haven’t… I wish I could tell you but I have no idea. Probably longer than you think it is going to, well everything is. There aren’t hundreds of hours in this, probably a couple of dozen hours in it, but it is not a great work of art like so many of the ones that you see in the Quilt Show here at the NEC today which are simply stunning and take my breath away, and I am full of admiration.
VM: Yeah but yours is a very well loved quilt.
JA: Ah well its good fun, it’s a fun quilt I think. And we play with it and that’s it really. It’s just good fun I’ve made quite a few for the grandchildren, cot quilts and things like that but this is just fun.
VM: So how many other quilts has Charlie got that you’ve made?
JA: Probably three, he’s got the one that my daughter came to Birmingham when she was pregnant and we chose the fabric in turquoise, she likes turquoise. He’s got one with applique ducks that’s just fun, that was sort of a playmate for him when he was a baby and that’s got yellow and orange ducks on it. You see again it’s not a traditional quilt is it? And then he has a circular one which I quite enjoyed doing actually just with a wedge ruler, a big wedge ruler and that’s used… I intended that for when they used to live on the south coast and I thought they’d take it to the beach but it actually seems to be have become a rug in his bedroom. So I think that that’s about it.
VM: Did Charlie know you were making this?
JA: No, no, no, no. Neither did his mummy either, so I just kept that as a bit of a fun surprise.
VM: And how did he react to it?
JA: Oh, he thought it was good but he didn’t sort of admire it and say ‘Granny that’s wonderful’, he just said ‘Oh owls! Owls! And this is an owl nest. You be…’ we were back to ‘you be Granny owl and I’ll be baby owl’. But it gets put down and we are all in the owls nest fairly frequently.
VM: Well in that case it’s definitely approved of.
JA: Oh it’s definitely approved of I think, yeah, yeah I think he likes it. He is two, he doesn’t know that people necessarily have made things, although his Mummy said ‘h look what Granny has made for you’. It stays at our house so he is playing with it in our house
VM: Do you think you will end up giving it to him and he’ll end up taking it away? Or will you keep it for the other grandchildren
JA: Well, there is only one who’s younger, she is not into owls yet, maybe she will but ultimately I guess I’ll give it to him. Shall I make a confession?
VM: Yes.
JA: It doesn’t have a label yet. Now that’s quite disgraceful on behalf of somebody who’s a member of the British Quilt Study Group. I promise I will do it I will put my name and the date on, yeah. So I’m getting into making quick quilts because, one of the groups I go to, we make quilts for Quilts for Comfort, which makes quilts for the Teenage Cancer Trust in Newcastle, so I’ve always got an eye for a reasonably quick pattern to do. And so I’m walking around the show thinking ‘Hmmm could I make that for a…’ I try to make teenage boys ones, because a lot of people have pink in their stash and so we do get a fair number of pink ones. I don’t know maybe I’m being too gender biased, but anyway I try to make ones that I think would be suitable for teenage boys.
VM: Hmm. And how long have you been doing that for?
JA: That’s been going for about 18 months. My friend made a quilt for her friend’s son, while he was having treatment and he died, and then his Mum set up this charity. What they tend to be used for is when that are travelling to and from the hospital for chemo and things they can snuggle into them in the car and that seems to be what it’s used for. Mostly. But a couple have been buried in them [pause].
VM: Mm
JA: So all these painstaking hours of wholecloth Durham quilts that I thought, being from Durham, I’d get into it and these very traditional things that I admire so much don’t seem to be something that I’m getting around to.
VM: Too busy with these other projects.
JA: Yes, too busy with other projects. I guess that happens doesn’t it.
VM: So you’ve not been quilting for very long then [JA: No]. So what got you started on quilting?
JA: What got me started… When I retired we moved back to Durham. I went into the covered market to… where I knew there was a stall that did threads and fabrics, they didn’t have the fabric that I wanted. I wanted one, I was looking for some fabric with a doctor motif on to make something for my daughter, who is a doctor, and they didn’t have any there and they said oh there might be some at the shop’ and I said ‘oh what shop?’ and in the time I had been away from Durham this shop had opened and so I went to the shop and behold it was a quilting shop and the rest is history. I’d sewn when the children were small, I used to make their clothes in the days when you couldn’t go to Sainsbury’s and buy them for a couple of quid, you know, but I haven’t done a lot of sewing since other than making curtains. So I enrolled at a class and that’s how you get going really, isn’t it?
VM: So when was that, when was that when you…?
JA: I started… well I had a bit of a false start because I started on the class and then the teacher left and then I was doing childcare on the day that that class ran. But I started again in earnest three, four years ago now and I still go up to Durham to that class, you make such friendships, don’t you really? But I’m going to a group near Harrogate now, as well, so in time I will probably be able to leave… well, you know, not leave them behind but get used to being somewhere else.
VM: So tell me about the class, where did you hear about it and…?
JA: Well, when I turned up at this shop and discovered it was a quilt shop and that there were quilt classes running and I thought ‘oh I kind of fancy that’ and I had made quilt, in the past, for my daughter. Because I’d seen in a magazine a Trip Around the World pattern and she’d just come back from Australia but I didn’t know anything about how to do things and I went to John Lewis and bought some cotton and ran up this quilt some of whose corners do meet [laughter]. But she still has it, she likes it, she says it’s quite retro. I don’t seem to do retro any more, or do I? So then I started going to this class and then that teacher, bless her, decided to retire but we also still go just as a group, a self-help group.
VM: So you had these grand plans of making all these…?
JA: Oh yes, it was all going to be very trad, you know, Sanderson Star is a very traditional North Country pattern. Durham is famous for its whole cloth quilts and a wholecloth quilt, not a hand done, but a machine done has just won a prize at the show. I don’t know if you managed to see it, a lovely green one and I’m quite interested in the history of quilts as well, and I was near Beamish Museum, which has got fabulous quilts, and so, I have a background as an academic so I go to the books, that’s what I do I go to the books, so I was reading about quilting and all these wonderful, wonderful things that had been done mostly by women, not entirely, but mostly by women in the past and so I was attracted very much to the notion of these very traditional patterns and the North Country idea of quilting. But that doesn’t seem to be what I’m doing because I’ve had three grandchildren, well I had one small grandchildren, one grandchild was already here but quite small and then two more grandchildren, so baby quilts and Quilts for Comfort seem to have taken over. I have made a couple of bed quilts but… [laughter].
VM: Do you think you are quite a prolific quilter, is it your go to thing to spend your evenings doing?
JA: It is certainly something that I enjoy doing if I can clear myself of other things to do. I knit so if I am watching television I am knitting jumpers for the grandchildren. It sounds a bit obsessive doesn’t it, I don’t think I’m really like that but they are not small long, and I think one of the things you know as a grandparent is that children don’t stay small. So my hand stitching time… other people say ‘oh well I do it watching the telly’ well I knit then. Besides my hands really wouldn’t take a lot of hand stitching. There’s something about the holding and stitching that I can’t do it for terribly, terribly long.
VM: So where do you have this beautiful machine?
JA: [Laughs] Well it’s upstairs. I was supposed to have, when we moved to Harrogate, one of the pay-offs was supposed to be that I was supposed to get a sewing room. But because the children’s toys seem to take over one of the bedrooms I am still sharing a study with my husband who has the capacity to pile papers and things everywhere so I don’t have quite as much space as I thought I would. There is an ironing board there but it’s rarely out I am still running downstairs to iron a lot. I do at least, I do have the good fortune to have a machine that is always out and always available and on a table and I don’t have to get it out as I used to, as I have done in the past and unload it and lift a heavy machine on to a table. I did my back in doing some curtains for my son for his flat once and I realised that my days of lifting heavy machines were over. So I am very fortunate anyway that I do have a machine on a table even though Alistair infringes on my space [laughter].
VM: How extensive is the stash and where is it?
JA: [Laughter] You can’t ask me that! I don’t know who’s going to read this [laughter]. I’ll have to ban my husband. Well, erm, yes, I did have fitted, into this bedroom that we use as a study, we did have a couple of double wardrobes fitted. One of which was supposed to be for clothes but both shelved and the other for my quilting stuff, but now I don’t have to tell you what’s happened, do I. I’ve got a shelf of jumpers in the right hand one [laughter] and that’s about it on the clothes. And it seems to be, well it’s not stacked floor to ceiling or anything, but it’s the other stuff that goes with it the plastic storage boxes and the rulers and wadding, that’s a bulky thing, and stuff like that.
VM: When you open those wardrobes what colour usually is there?
JA: Well I’ve been quite good of late, I’ve been colour coding my storage. So there is always a box of blue, some greens in translucent storage boxes. I can tell you the colour that I don’t have and that’s purple. And a lot of quilters are so successful and do lovely purple things. I’ve got a couple of friends at the moment who are doing lovely purple shaded quilts, and I don’t seem to do purple. Don’t know why. And then there’s the Christmas stuff, which breeds. Now every quilter knows that the Christmas fat quarters [laughter] breed. I keep trying to get rid of them, I run them up as Christmas napkins, they don’t match, I tell myself its shabby chic and everybody has a different coloured napkin but they still proliferate.
VM: So do you do a lot of Christmas type things?
JA: I have done in the past, but I try to do less each year. But last year I had to make another stocking for my granddaughter because her parents acquired the one that I had made for us to… Santa leaves a stocking for everybody at our house, everybody whatever age you are. So her parents acquired the one that I made so I had to make another one, and then her tiny cousin was coming for Christmas so I made him one using partial seams on hexagons I enjoyed that, new technique used it again since, liked it. All on the machine. What else did I do? Oh yes and then my daughter wanted a tree skirt, so I had to do a tree skirt. And then she decided she’d have another little Christmas tree somewhere else in the house so that Charlie could have that as his personal little decorating Christmas tree and she made stuff with him for it. So that had to have one, so there we are, so I’m not making any more Christmas stuff for last year. And I made at least two tree skirts, two stockings, a book for the baby, you know a cloth book. But the Christmas quilt that I started making is still a PHD – Project Half Done.
VM: You said a partial seam on hexagons, what does that mean?
JA: Yes. Well, if you do hexagons, or some people call them Y seams, if you are putting hexagons together on the machine, you have to leave a little gap at the end of the seams so that you can turn the fabric the other way. Some people don’t like it or find it tedious but I found just sitting at the machine doing these was quite… I quite enjoyed it and other people I’m sure are whizzo at it you know on YouTube, at a rate of knots, I couldn’t aspire to but I quite enjoyed learning that technique.
VM: Where do you learn things now?
JA: Other people show me or I do use YouTube videos or magazines. Yes definitely, definitely YouTube.
VM: I mean obviously with this you said that you adapted a design, how often do you design your own things?
JA: Not very often as I am not very brave and I’m not very artistic and I can’t draw. But I have done some things from scratch. I made one for my older grandson which is a sort of beach and nautical scene, with beaches and lighthouse and I designed that one myself because, at the time, I had my teacher and she was, and she said ‘of course you can do this’ and she was very helpful and I did that, but generally I have to say I take other people’s ideas.
VM: There’s nothing wrong with that.
JA: No. Patterns from quilt books and that.
VM: Do you have any quilting aspirations?
JA: You mean the wholecloth, Durham quilt, hand done on a frame. I don’t think that’s even an aspiration anymore. I think that’s gone by the board. I really do, I really do. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Will I ever make a Sanderson star? That’s probably more likely. I like to learn a new technique, I’ve learned to foundation piece, I quite enjoyed that and at regional day we had a workshop from somebody who is one of the country’s experts in miniature quilts, and who’s been interviewed for this project actually, her picture is on the stand at the show. And that’s very small scale foundation piecing, I enjoyed that, my next target is curved seams. I really need to have a go at that. So yeah, curved seams is probably my next target.
VM: You mentioned YouTube, do you do much buying of things on the internet, or do you like to see, to touch the precious fabric?
JA: I’m very fortunate because I do go to this quilt shop on a weekly basis, so there‘s stuff there and I am wary of buying things online if I need a particular shade of something because it’s hard to get a true match. I quite like buying novelty, I don’t mind buying novelty fabrics online, you know things that I think I’m not going to do, and then I’ll see a bit of fabric somewhere that has bicycles on or something like that because my family are all bonkers about sport, I would buy that online and I do buy equipment online that I can’t get perhaps in my local shop, so particular rulers and I’ve even, I have sent to the States for a ruler, for a particular shape, because I wanted to make a particular quick quilt for Quilts for Comfort. So, yeah, I think I’d be more likely to buy equipment and notions online.
VM: Do you have a particular gadget that you love, or that you go back to, or that you regret buying?
JA: Oh one that I regret buying {laughter] I’ve got a few of those. I better not say what it is because I’ve just bought something else today to go with it. I haven’t used it very much. My friend who bought the same… It’s supposed to be an A2 semi free motion quilting… my friend bought one at the same time and I keep saying to her ‘have you used it yet?’ and she keeps saying ‘no’. It’s a kind of ruler that helps you do free motion but I’m going to take… she and I keep saying that one week we will both take them and we will both sit and do it. We will learn how to do it, we will get them out of the box. You can get a bit carried away at the shows and think, ‘oh brilliant idea’ and then you don’t have the time to learn how to use it.
VM: Do you go many of the quilt shows, which ones do you like to go to?
JA: I come to this one, I usually go to the Harrogate one, I have been up to the one at Ingliston in Edinburgh. I would go to very local ones sometimes to support local quilters or people I know, I’ve just been given information today about a local show from somebody I know. I’m going to Houston this year, taking the money out the bank and going. I can’t believe I’m doing it but I am. So that should be fun, shouldn’t it?
VM: Who are you going there with?
JA: I’m going with ECT travel, it’s the travel company that liaises with the Guild so I feel quite confident that way.
VM: So when you come to a quilt show what do you make a bee line for, is it the workshops, is it the exhibitions, is it the shopping?
JA: Well I guess all of those really. This is the first year I haven’t done a workshop here and that’s because I’ve been helping out on one of the stands, on the Talking Quilts stand, but I like to do a workshop and then I feel, well, I’ve learned something as well. Well or not learnt it, or failed to learn it… And the shopping is always tempting, isn’t it, but I’m trying to be good here this year at Birmingham. I love to see the quilts, I love to see the quilts and I’ve learned that you have to pace yourselves in your quilt viewing, you know, have a look at a couple of rows of quilts and then have a break then go back and do another couple of rows. Otherwise your brain is just bombarded with all the ideas. And you get to recognise one or two people’s styles, I like the… there’s often a meerkat one, you know, there’s a meerkat one here, somebody makes meerkat ones, they are always amusing and I’ve ended up translating them into French for people because there is a similar advert on French telly, but it’s got ferrets which are furet in French. It was a bizarre conversation really translating the wording of it into French and explaining to them that we have this advert like they have an advert with ferrets in. I look for that. I love Phillipa Naylor’s work, she won last year at Birmingham, so, you know, there are some people’s work you look out for, or recognise, and it’s a great joy always to see it. And I like the young quilters work.
VM: Is there any particular people who inspire you?
JA: Well, I guess the people you know who are quilting around you are just such a source of inspiration, you meet people, and I saw a wonderful pattern today and I thought, ‘oh can I buy that?’ there is quite a lot of hand stitching on it and then I realised I knew the person who designed it and I know her work is wonderful, Dorothy Baird, so that’s quite inspirational. I think. I love Philippa Naylor’s work, ooh, just love that, you know her use of the way she gets so much texture, sometimes without extra colour, but she has started to use more colour in her work. And then you get help from people, people show you how to do things, so you see people making things and, you know, your inspiration can come from a person across the table, but I do read a lot of magazines and I am trying to be good about buying magazines, but yeah, any way there we are, I’m trying to be good about magazines, I haven’t bought any this show.
VM: Well done. When you are going into an exhibition, what do you head for first? Is it traditional quilts, is it contemporary, what is it?
JA: I go for the prize-winners first, I like to see what the best in the show are. I just like to see those first. I think that every quilt merits attention and I don’t want you to think that I don’t think other people have done wonderful, wonderful things, you know and they may not be as technically perfect as others, but they’re still wonderful but I do like to see the prize-winners and look at those first. And then I like to see the funny, anything amusing, you know, the kids ones. This year there’s one with Mr. Punch with a string of sausages. Some people probably don’t like those things but I think they are quite amusing. We should have fun when we quilt, shouldn’t we.
VM: When you are looking at the galleries, what do you think makes a good quilt?
JA: Well. Before I get up close, what appeals? I suppose it is design isn’t it. Do you know it’s still the wholecloth ones that take my breath away, wholecloth quilts are fab. So anything that is wholecloth, I would go towards probably, and I think what makes a good quilt. Well clearly design and I suppose it’s technique isn’t it that the judges would look at but I always remember the first time a quilt of mine went into a show, its wasn’t a competition but we were asked to send some quilts as part of a show and I was talking to one of the show organisers and she said to me ‘better finished than perfect’. And I thought, ‘yes that is true’, and I’ve said that to other quilters who’ve said ‘oh I haven’t got this much in or that much in’. Because quilters are hyper self-critical. Better finished than perfect. So I’m not necessarily looking for technical perfection. I suppose I like things that are perhaps a little bit different. But having said that a Baltimore, you know very traditional appliqued, or hand-appliqued often, they are fabulous. You rarely see one that isn’t fabulous, I’m not going to be quilt judge am I I can’t get the criteria right?
VM: I have no idea what the criteria is! Why did you chose this quilt to come and talk about?
JA: Well. One reason is pragmatic it was small enough to fit in my case. I suppose, secondly it’s the most recently finished one. Maybe thirdly, because I seem to make a lot of quilts for children and young people at the moment that seems to be a phase of my life, I’m sure it might well pass. But making quilts for the grandchildren and for Quilts for Comfort, the young people there. So it is representative of the quilting phase I am in at the moment.
VM: So when you are making these Quilts for Comfort, just tell me a bit more about where the project is and what it is.
JA: Well in… oh crumbs I keep asking June for an update, every now and then she tells us how many have been made. I think… it has been amazing the response, I think it’s something like 180 in less than two years have come in. Church groups have set up and made them, we’ve got people who can make a nine patch square, you know, by hand, quite elderly people, and people who are just fabulous quilters and can run up wonderful things, and it’s just been astounding the response to this and it’s been great. The staff at the hospital have taken it on, there’s now one of the nurses who sort of helps distribute them, the consultant is into it, you know it’s just been a great response.
VM: And it’s quite a new project really isn’t it?
JA: Relatively new, yes, it’s not unlike Linus really but a bit older. I sometimes think teenagers get a bit of raw deal in life. I understand that there have been quite a lot of advances in the treatment of childhood cancers, but teenage cancers relating to them, I think, it seems to be a bit of a harder nut to crack. So it is one of the areas that needs a lot of research I understand. So I’ve just done a few quilts. But it’s been a great outlet as well in a way for people who have run out of quilts to make. You know, they may be single people and they just don’t have big families to quilt for and they can make these. And it just works all round it’s just been, it’s good fun.
VM: You go for boys, you make boys?
JA: I try to I have made a couple of ones, we are still talking along gender lines, but more boys get cancer in the teenage years I understand. And I think people, as I say, seem to have pink in their stash, so I try to find things that would work for boys. I have made what I thought was the world’s ugliest quilt [laughter] which had camper vans and things on a black background. Anybody who’s in quilting will recognise and I won’t say the make of fabric, but they’ll know, and I found this pattern that had, I didn’t have that fabric on the actual pattern but it had sort of focus squares surrounded by spotty fabric, had red spots and orange spotted fabric in and I thought this has to be the world’s ugliest quilt and at BQSG [British Quilt Study Group] I was talking to somebody, a lady who comes from Australia to BQSG and she makes quilts for charity and she said ‘we have a rule we would not give to the charity a quilt that we would not wish to receive’. And I thought ‘I wouldn’t want this, black racing cars…’ [laughter] But I’m hoping some teenage lad got it and it was appropriate for him. There you go again it is not a wholecloth Durham quilt or a Sanderson Star, it is this in your face black and red and orange car…
VM: I’m sure there’s some teenage boy out there who loves it.
JA: My son would have at that age. He wanted a black and white bedroom at one stage which I managed to achieve without going too goth and so it was sort of along those lines.
VM: So what do you think is the biggest challenge that you face as a quilter?
JA: Well anything to do with hand quilting. I haven’t done any hand quilting I would find that physically a bit difficult. I think, in fact I probably, as I say I’ve probably just got to give up on the wholecloth Durham quilt. Other challenges? Finding the time to do it. Because quilts don’t get finished unless you stitch them. What else do I find hard? I find design hard. I do find design hard. And then there’s the free motion issue which some people do, and I’m not that bad at it but I just don’t do it often enough to get good at it and I know some people who are fabulous free motion quilters. So there you go.
VM: Why is quiltmaking important in your life?
JA: Well, I have always knitted, sewn. My mother never made quilts but she did dress-make and she did knit. She was a fabulous knitter. My aunts’ dress made and knitted and tatted and crocheted so, I guess that kind of aspect of making things, but more utilitarian things, you know, you made clothes, you knitted jumpers. That I suppose has always been around and I did it, you know, as a teenager I would knit myself jumpers or make myself skirts and things. Clothing seemed to be relatively more expensive then I think. Perhaps that’s just my perception. So I just I suppose I grew up, I’m an only child and my mother was too so these aunts I talk about were actually not aunts but, you know, in the more extended family, everybody did this kind of thing. And so I’ve always knitted and then, but when I was working full-time I didn’t do much sewing other than run up curtains and things so then it came back into my life and it’s great.
I find it quite escapist, I haven’t got huge things to escape from but it’s nice to go into a little personal world, in some ways, you meet great people. Quilters of their nature tend to be very generous. It’s an international thing as well. Yeah, there are some men around in it and that’s absolutely great, there are a lot of women, and this is perhaps an artistic or creative expression for them, as it is for the men as well, don’t misunderstand me. But I think because a lot of women are involved in quilting it is something that we have to very consciously value. Does that make sense? [VM: Hmm] I hope that makes sense anyway. So yeah.
VM: What do our family think of your quilting?
JA: Well they are very supportive actually, my husband is quite supportive. He would drive me to a quilt show if he had to. He would be unlikely to come in [laughter], but he would drive me there. Yes, he’s quite encouraging. And my daughter would like to do more I think she’s quite artistic anyway and quite creative but with a small child and a job which should be part time but because it’s in the health area, isn’t, you know the kind of thing. So she would like to do more as well. She is very supportive.
VM: Does she do any quilting
JA: She has sewn things, No she hasn’t made a quilt yet. She would love to. And she’s naturally very good at doing things. When she was expecting Charlie she was making changing bags out of PVC, which I could tell her how to, the theory of how you stitch PVC but I wouldn’t touch it myself, and yes things like that. And she makes cushions and things like that. I think she would like to have more time but she doesn’t at the moment.
VM: Let me just have a check [background chatter]. Is there anything else you would like to say about your quilting, anything you feel we’ve not talked about?
JA: No it’s just that I’m aware that people make quilts for a whole load of reasons, and there are some very, quite moving stories and things related to family history and things. And I’m afraid mines just a bit of fun really the one I’ve bought along today. So I do have some of my nephew’s shirts [pause] and I’m probably waiting for the time that I can… [gets upset] turn those into a quilt for my sister-in-law. [Pause] Thanks Vicky.