TGQ coming in hot on two wheels to recognize Women’s History Month as it’s nearly the last minute of the last day of the month when I post this!

I learned from an online search that The National Women’s History Alliance, which spearheaded the movement for March being declared National Women’s History Month, has announced the women’s history theme for 2023 is “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories.” Below are just some of the great female journalists and authors of our time, how many women do you recognize in the photo below and how much do you know about them?

*Top: Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, Jovita Idar, Maya Angelou*
*Middle: Gerda Lerner, Gloria Steinem, Winona La Duke, Lillian Hellman*
*Bottom: Betty Soskin, Willa Cather, Gertrude Stein, Marjory Stoneman Douglas *

I’m coming at Women’s History Month from a different angle - instead of looking back, I’m looking forward at some local young women and quilting. With quilting, it’s common to look at history, but more and more I’m seeing young designers in the quilting industry whether it’s fabric design, digital long arm designs, product development, etc. There is also an increase in the number of young women picking up the art of quilting. It was exciting to hear these young women were working on a textile badge and wanted to learn more about quilting and my experience with it and running a business. Below they’re gathered as they end their meeting.

Members of *American Heritage Girls Troop IL 0079.*

Earlier this year when I was invited to speak to them, I thought it would be fun to bring them some of our giveaways. As I gathered together the swag for them, I thought of how many times I’ve said, “I’m working on my sewing badge”. While I was in 4-H and had items judged, I was never a scout.

For the record, I have sold A LOT of Girl Scout Cookies in my time because I was good friends with the best troop leader ever, Acorn, (aka Pat Schmitt) from the Girl Scouts of River Bluff Council. I offered to take a card into work and sell some boxes. It was always over 100 boxes and required a Saturday run to the office to distribute! Below is an annual report from one of my better “sales years”. 😉

Where did 22 years go?! And a little side note, one of these scouts on cover turned 30 a few years ago, now seriously, where did 30 years go??

Back to the story at hand, one of our quilters, Barbara, is involved with her daughter’s troop and shared with me the various ways they could earn their badge. The criteria included design and create a banner, make a quilt and donate it to a worthy cause (they gave examples), interview someone proficient in one of the textile arts, and/or identify a textile artist who sells their work or another type of career in the textile industry. I was honored I qualified. Below is a photo of me talking about my history with quilting.

Several of Barbara’s beautiful quilts are shown above.

The scouts had a good working knowledge of both sewing and quilting and asked really interesting questions. Some had projects in mind and one mentioned she has someone in Alaska she could make a quilt for and send to them. I was pretty jazzed about that. I’m down to a handful of states who do not have a TGQ quilt and Alaska is one of them. Maybe she will have a project for me to quilt! I told them I never thought sewing and quilting would become my line of work, but I’m so happy that it has. My hope is they pursue a passion as they grow and evolve and leave their mark on this world.

Using Barbara’s quilts, pictured above, we discussed the various types of ways fabric can be bundled and sold, choosing color strategies if buying fabric individually, the variety of patterns for quilt tops, deciding on a color strategy, finding the right quilting design for your top, and finally thread color. I then explained the long arm process to them, why extra fabric is needed for the back compared to when a traditional quilt frame is used to hand quilt a quilt, and how our model of long arm can quilt 1,500 stitches per minute.

Below is a favorite of John’s. The pattern for the quilt top is called Moroccan Tile and Barbara chose a dense quilting pattern for it, Pearls and Paisley, in a light pink thread. At the time, Pearls and Paisley was a new pattern for us and would require a lot of thread due to the dense nature of the pattern. This didn’t deter Barbara, she felt it would be perfect for her quilt and it was. It is stunning in person, the photo below does not capture the detail.

Quilt shows are never complete without a “show and tell”! There are 300,358 stitches in this quilt!

They invited me to stay for their meeting, but after a long day at the ol’ dusty loom, I passed and headed back home. I’m wishing now I had stayed, I’m sure they could have taught me a thing or two! It was really great to spend time with them and I do hope one (or more!) of them contact me about quilting for them in the future.

I always love getting mail and this card made my day.

And, yes, they were happy with their TGQ swag. They sent the sweetest thank you note, shown above. I mailed them a thank you note, too, but it was TGQ stationery. I like theirs, it’s definitely more personal.

** Please note the girls have signed a photo release with their troop and permission was granted to me to use their photos. **

"Her"story