Running Stitch - A QSOS Podcast

This episode--our last episode of season 1 of Running Stitch--features a panel discussion about quilts and writing moderated by host Janneken Smucker. Our four panelists are quilt journalist Meg Cox, novelist Frances O'Roark Dowell, quilter and mathematics professor Chawne Kimber, and poet and educator Gwen Westerman. All four are writers and quiltmakers and you'll hear them discuss connections between quiltmaking and writing, their creative processes, and the intersection of quilts and words.

The discussion was recorded live as part of the Textile Talks lecture series, featuring public programming from six quilt and fiber art organizations across the country. Video of this, and other Textile Talks, is available via YouTube.

Quilt legend Jinny Beyer has seen it all in the quilt world over the last 50 years. In this episode, host Janneken Smucker revisits Jinny's 2013 interview when she shared the quilt she made following 9-11. Jinny joins Janneken to discuss quiltmaking amid crisis, including how independent quilt shops like Jinny Beyer Studio are weathering the current pandemic.

During the week after the killing of George Floyd, Running Stitch host Janneken Smucker spoke with Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi about quilts, race, and the long struggle for civil rights. Dr. Mazloomi founded the Women of Color Quilters Network and has curated many landmark exhibits centered on race and civil rights, including "Journey of Hope: Quilts Inspired by President Barack Obama." This episode features excerpts from several oral history interviews conducted for the Quilts for Obama QSOS sub-project.

Let's face it. It's 2020 and 2020 won't quit. We are living through difficult times. While the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are unevenly felt, we are all in the midst of it. QSOS oral history interviews often ask, "How have you used quilts to get through a difficult time?" Our guest for this episode, artist and maker Melanie Testa, first interviewed for the project in 2010, joins host Janneken Smucker to share how she has responded to the COVID-19 crisis by digging into her vast fabric stash and a network of generous friends to make masks to distribute to essential workers.

Episode 2 of Running Stitch focuses on quilts and activism. Quilters have long used their work to make statements and advocate for change, tackling abolition, temperance, suffrage, and many other social justice issues. Join host Janneken Smucker for a conversation with quilter and author of Why We Quilt, Thomas Knauer, discussing why quilts are great objects for making statements, and how Thomas communicates politically through his own quilts.

Welcome to the very first episode of Running Stitch, the QSOS Podcast. For our very first episode, we're talking with New York City quilter Victoria Findlay Wolfe. Victoria was first interviewed for the QSOS project in 2011. Our host, Janneken Smucker, talks with Victoria about that first interview, her first quilts, and how her career has evolved in the nine years since. Janneken and Victoria also talk about making a first quilt with their young daughters, what makes a great quilt, and just why we care so much about quilt labeling. Join us for an episode all about firsts!

Running Stitch, A QSOS Podcast is a brand new podcast by the Quilt Alliance. Join us as we explore quilt stories, revealing the inner thoughts, feelings, and motivations of contemporary quiltmakers by drawing on Quilters S.O.S. -- Save Our Stories, the long running oral history project created by the Quilt Alliance in 1999.

Quilts and quiltmaking serve as a lens to examine some of today's most pressing issues, including activism, public health, politics, race, and the economy. We'll dig into the QSOS archive to listen to excerpts from past interviews, and bring back interviewees to ask them about what they are working on and thinking about presently. Upcoming guests include Victoria Findlay Wolfe, Carolyn Mazloomi, Thomas Knauer, Melanie Testa, and Jinny Beyer.