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Minnesota Quilt Stories - Clara Jenkins
Little Falls; Minnesota; United States
An oral history interview with Clara Gregerson Jenkins (1912-2008), recorded in 1993, when she had been quilting for almost 60 years.
Oral history interview of Clara Jenkins by Allene Helgeson.
0:00:03.0 Clara Jenkins (CJ): You can call me Clara.
0:00:04.6 AH: Clara. I'm talking to Clara Jenkins up at Fort Ripley. I have to be careful not to say Camp Ripley.
0:00:12.0 CJ: Yeah, that's right.
0:00:13.1 AH: Yeah. Was the fort an original fort?
0:00:17.2 CJ: It was a fort across the river in about, in the 1880s. I think it was.
0:00:21.4 AH: And then they made the military...
0:00:23.8 CJ: Completely dismantled the Fort and then the town started on... Was built up on this side on the east side of the river. The camp was on the west side of the Fort.
0:00:33.7 AH: Okay. Well, we're here because we wanna start quilting. There's nothing that even one of us, probably like more talking about quilting, but you brought quilts into the Brainerd Quilt Discovery Days. And you're a member of the patchworkers I hear.
0:00:51.9 CJ: Pinetree Patchworkers.
0:00:52.9 AH: Yeah.
0:00:53.1 CJ: Yes.
0:00:53.3 AH: I interviewed a Vivian Smithburg couple weeks ago and she is a member of that group too.
0:01:00.6 CJ: Yes.
0:01:00.9 AH: She's a nice lady with lots of quilts.
0:01:02.9 CJ: I don't know her.
0:01:03.7 AH: She lives over. It's real close to Garrison; it's over on Miller Lake.
0:01:09.5 CJ: We have about 80 members in our club and I don't know...
0:01:13.8 AH: No.
0:01:13.8 CJ: I know only about one-fourth of them. I think by name now.
0:01:16.5 AH: Well, how long have you been quilting?
0:01:19.0 CJ: Oh, I started in about two years before I was married about 1937.
0:01:24.5 AH: And you just started two years before you were married and you start for a reason then to quilt.
0:01:29.3 CJ: Oh, wanted to make a quilt; I made that the double wedding ring. That was my first quilt.
0:01:34.1 AH: Now that's a... Let me see in 1935 then. And so the colors are pretty, what does it look like? Let's take a look at it and see. I hope that's...
0:01:46.1 CJ: The material was... I haven't used this one very much.
0:01:50.6 AH: Did you kind of consider it a quilt that you were making before you were married before a wedding or?
0:01:56.8 CJ: My mother and I each made one that year.
0:02:00.4 AH: Oh, did you know then that you were gonna be married?
0:02:01.5 CJ: Oh yes.
0:02:02.1 AH: Yeah. Two years before?
0:02:04.0 CJ: Mm-hmm.
0:02:05.2 AH: Oh, you planned ahead. Oh, now see that's a real typical. The double wedding ring was one of the patterns.
0:02:12.7 CJ: For our first quilt, it wasn't the easiest one because of all the curves.
0:02:17.4 AH: Well, it wasn't. I know it wasn't in joining all these things to make them look like they came out even where they joined.
0:02:26.0 CJ: That's right.
0:02:26.6 AH: That's wonderful. But some of these fabrics, you must have had a scrap bag.
0:02:31.6 CJ: Well, that and then I ordered some from some place where they gave you all [colors?]. Sent you all kinds of little patches from cutaways, I think, from some place like that. And I begged and borrowed from my friends too to get some variety. We did a lot of sewing. Mother made her own house dresses and we made our own summer dresses and things like that.
0:02:52.4 AH: So, you hand pieced this?
0:02:54.4 CJ: No, this is all machine work, I think.
0:02:57.0 AH: I see.
0:02:57.4 CJ: Except I think when I put the squares in the corner, that's probably done by hand. I don't just remember that so long ago.
0:03:04.2 AH: Well, and what's your filling?
0:03:06.7 CJ: Mountain Mist.
0:03:08.2 AH: It was a batting.
0:03:09.1 CJ: A Mountain Mist batting. I'm sure.
0:03:11.3 AH: Oh yeah. I can see too, it's batting.
0:03:13.7 CJ: Yes.
0:03:14.4 AH: And they didn't have poly, so I can feel it must been...
0:03:18.2 CJ: I do have one.
0:03:19.3 AH: This must be a cotton batt.
0:03:21.6 CJ: Yes.
0:03:21.9 AH: 'Cause Mountain Mist wouldn't have...
0:03:23.2 CJ: I had one with a wool. I had one with a wool batt on my bed.
0:03:25.5 AH: Well, had you been quilting before that or you just started?
0:03:29.3 CJ: No, that was when I started at that time.
0:03:31.6 AH: Didn't do any piecing stuff as a kid.
0:03:33.5 CJ: Oh, maybe a few years before that, when I taught school, I taught the school down here on the road, about a half a mile. And we made a quilt each... Some of the girls in school, each made a quilt. We put it together and they came to my house one Saturday and we tied that one and then we raffled it off so we could earn enough money to buy an organ for the school.
0:03:55.0 AH: Did you make enough?
0:03:56.0 CJ: We got $10 and we bought an organ for $10 and... [chuckle]
0:04:00.9 AH: Wow.
0:04:01.2 CJ: My aunt won the quilt too. And she used to do a lot of quilting. It's kinda ironic that she should win it, but she did.
0:04:07.3 AH: Well, that's good. I bet she treasured it because you made it.
0:04:10.6 CJ: We sold the tickets for 10 cents a piece, youngsters in school got out and sold all the tickets. And so we did all right on that.
0:04:19.9 AH: When would that have been?
0:04:21.0 CJ: That was about 1933 or '34. I taught school in two years down here and that the '34 and '35. '34 and '35 is when I taught that.
0:04:30.9 AH: Now, where were you saying you taught?
0:04:32.4 CJ: Oh, there was a rural school down the highway, about a half a mile. And it's since been sold and moved. And then it burned after that.
0:04:40.5 AH: Did you always live here?
0:04:42.6 CJ: No. I was born and raised in Southwest of Little Falls. I went to high school in Little Falls. My dad bought the lake shore property up here in 1921. And then we moved up here in 1925. Then I went back to Little Falls to go to high school, graduated from high school in Little Falls and lived here until I was married in 1939. And then lived at Camp Ripley for five years and I was married there. Then my husband died and then I went back to teaching and I taught school up in Koochiching County, my last 22 years.
0:05:14.3 AH: So you've been widowed for a long....
0:05:18.5 CJ: Oh yeah. Since 1945.
0:05:19.8 AH: Sorry.
0:05:20.2 CJ: Yes.
0:05:21.3 AH: Wow. But this was the wedding ring quilt.
0:05:24.6 CJ: That was the wedding ring quilt that I made.
0:05:26.6 AH: Yep. And is the other wedding ring the one...
0:05:29.1 CJ: That one, some man came here a few years ago, he want them, I had any old quilts, and the one my mother made, I sold to him.
0:05:35.6 AH: Oh. Oh, so what is this wedding?
0:05:38.1 CJ: This...
0:05:38.4 AH: Oh, this isn't a wedding ring.
0:05:39.5 CJ: No, this is this one I started in 1945 the year my son was born. I started it and then I finished it the next year. This is Joseph's Coat. This was...
0:05:48.5 AH: That's beautiful.
0:05:49.8 CJ: This one's never been used...
0:05:50.0 AH: Oh, [0:05:50.0] ____ I was gonna say if ever it's part [...] finished. Oh, and you tagged, I thinks it's so good to get it labeled.
0:05:58.6 CJ: Well then if it was tagged, it probably was at the... Maybe this is the one...
0:06:04.1 AH: Started in '45.
0:06:06.2 CJ: Finished in '47.
0:06:07.9 AH: Do you think that maybe this was one you...
0:06:09.7 CJ: This one I'd rather think maybe this is the one...
0:06:12.1 AH: See, I can check from the slides when I get back.
0:06:15.2 CJ: Yeah.
0:06:15.6 AH: Minnesota project office.
0:06:17.4 CJ: And then I think... And possibly this one.
0:06:22.0 AH: They were interested in quilts made before 1976.
0:06:24.7 CJ: Yes.
0:06:25.0 AH: The older, the better.
0:06:26.4 CJ: Yes.
0:06:26.7 AH: And that's the old.
0:06:28.0 CJ: Yes. Now see that, this one I made the year I wasn't teaching, after I was married.
0:06:34.2 AH: Now this Joseph's Coat has a real thin feel to it.
0:06:38.8 CJ: Yeah.
0:06:39.2 AH: It isn't a batting. It feels more like you must have used, oh, like a sheet blanket.
0:06:44.5 CJ: I just don't remember what was put in this one.
0:06:48.2 AH: When you look through,.. and of course, you never used it since.
0:06:50.9 CJ: It might have been a very thin Mountain Mist one, too.
0:06:53.5 AH: It might have been.
0:06:54.4 CJ: I just don't recall.
0:06:55.2 AH: It hasn't been washed so you can't see any...
0:07:00.0 CJ: No, you can tell... See, when muslin has been washed, and I didn't know I was supposed to pre-shrink my material at that time. And that's why this one looks so fresh and new.
0:07:11.6 AH: Oh, they're all just beautiful, though, don't they feel nice? You don't ever use this one?
0:07:17.7 CJ: Well, I only have one bed and I've got two quilts on that one. [laughter] This one...
0:07:23.4 AH: You made it for your son, you said it's Joseph's Coat.
0:07:25.1 CJ: I made it when my son was a baby.
0:07:28.0 AH: Oh, when your son was a baby. Does your son live around here?
0:07:32.1 CJ: Up at Nisswa.
0:07:32.7 AH: Up at Nisswa. That's pretty.
0:07:33.8 CJ: And I've made quilts for all the grandchildren. I have three grandchildren, they've each gotten a quilt. And I've made them for wedding gifts. I've probably made 50 or 75 quilts in my time.
0:07:42.7 AH: Oh, wonderful. You're going along without any help from this guide at all, we're just going right down the... You're just answering questions like crazy. And that's what we want to do, it's just as easy as possible. But you're saying how many quilts you've made?
0:08:00.0 CJ: I just have no idea. I know I've made around...
0:08:02.2 AH: Fifty or 75 you said?
0:08:03.7 CJ: That one over there is sold. I just finished that one last week and then I've got a top for a denim one that I've made, and I've made 10 of those, I know.
0:08:09.4 AH: Do you sell a lot of quilts or do you just sell some?
0:08:12.2 CJ: Oh, whenever I happen to have one that's... I just make them for the fun of making them. And I don't need them, as you can see.
0:08:17.8 AH: Yes. Are they mostly scrap quilts? I see...
0:08:19.5 CJ: Yes.
0:08:19.7 AH: Most of these.
0:08:20.4 CJ: Except for this one... Here, this one I bought all the material for my sampler quilt. But the others were just scrap quilts.
0:08:28.3 AH: I see. Well, I should look at this outline and see if we're filling in part of this. I guess I should say, your name is Clara Jenkins, your address is here at Sleepy Hollow Road. I have that. What's your birthdate?
0:08:42.0 CJ: Halloween.
0:08:43.6 AH: October 31st?
0:08:44.6 CJ: That's right. Celebrated my 80th birthday last year with a big party.
0:08:49.4 AH: And so, it would have been...
0:08:51.3 CJ: I'll soon be 81.
0:08:53.6 AH: '22?
0:08:53.9 CJ: 1912.
0:08:54.8 AH: 1912, oh. That tells you something about my mathematics. And your national background?
0:09:02.0 CJ: My dad was Danish and my mother was German.
0:09:04.9 AH: And they were both from the Little Falls area?
0:09:09.6 CJ: Yeah. My father was born in Denmark, he came over to this country when he was only nine months old. My grandpa had come shortly before that and then when he earned enough money to bring grandma and my dad over, they came the next year, in 1980...
0:09:23.2 AH: 1880.
0:09:24.7 CJ: 1880. Yes. [laughter]
0:09:27.2 AH: That's wonderful. So you're first generation?
0:09:30.6 CJ: Yeah.
0:09:34.4 AH: And, let me see... You lived all the time in this general area... Between Little Falls...
0:09:40.3 CJ: And Brainerd. Except the 22 years I was teaching school, and then I was up north. I used to say, "I went north for the winter and south for the summer," 'cause I used to come home and stay with my folks in the summer and go to summer school.
0:09:54.0 AH: And you say you probably started quilting not really too long before 1930?
0:10:00.6 CJ: '35. '35, '37... Around there.
0:10:06.3 AH: And you quilted with your mom?
0:10:08.6 CJ: We used to set up a quilting frame, now I use a quilting hoop.
0:10:11.8 AH: Do you have a big hoop or just...
0:10:14.4 CJ: Oh, I just took it upstairs. I have about a 24-inch one, that's the one I...
0:10:18.1 AH: Is it on a stand then?
0:10:19.1 CJ: Nope. I lay it on my card table here and work on the table right here. That works real well for me.
0:10:25.8 AH: Kind of balance it between the table and you?
0:10:28.2 CJ: Yeah, so when I put the organ bench over there so it's not just laying on the floor. Works real well that way.
0:10:34.0 AH: Yeah, well I imagine you've figured out what works best for... You hand quilt everything?
0:10:39.5 CJ: Hand quilt everything. I've never done any machine quilting.
0:10:42.4 AH: Yeah, I think it's real difficult. To do it well.
0:10:45.1 CJ: They have a lot of gals in our quilt club that do beautiful machine quilting now, they're getting...
0:10:50.1 CJ: They say it's just like everything. Practice, practice, practice.
0:10:53.7 CJ: Well, I know.
0:10:55.0 AH: A lot of it's getting...
0:10:55.7 CJ: The reason I like to hand quilt is it's something to do, it keeps you busy and it... With machine quilting, you'd be done in a short time. Where with... I think worked on that quilt about a month or six weeks. I just had it here for something to do, when I was sitting watching TV or listening to TV. I didn't watch it that much 'cause I was quilting. But to me, quilting is a relaxing pastime, I think.
0:11:20.1 AH: For me too. I enjoy it, but I haven't done any machine quilting except... Oh, things like on a baby quilt or something. Not anything intricate, just to get it done and...
0:11:32.5 CJ: I've made baby quilts too, but I usually tie them. I usually take those and sell those up at the gift shop at the Senior Citizen's Center. Better get busy and make some, I think they've sold the couple that I had up there, so I don't have any.
0:11:45.1 AH: What do they do, put them in a consignment, then?
0:11:48.4 CJ: Consignment then. And they get 15% for selling them for us. Well, if we wanted say $15 for a quilt then they had 15% and then they would sell it for whatever that 15% adds on to it. That's the way they make some money there, in the gift shop.
0:12:02.5 AH: Well, a lot of people do really nice crafts.
0:12:05.8 CJ: Oh, and if you want to buy a gift and not... It's a homemade gift, you can go there. They have quilts and potholders, towels, stuffed toys... Oh, just a variety of things...
0:12:17.1 AH: Wooden ware. Wooden toys.
0:12:19.1 CJ: Wooden things... Little knick-knack things for the refrigerator, they've just... There's always some of those around there.
0:12:26.3 AH: That's a good idea because a lot of people love to make these things but they just don't have any place to use them.
0:12:32.5 CJ: Well, and another thing... Some of these people like those homemade gifts but they can't make them. They just aren't talented to do it, too.
0:12:38.7 AH: Yeah. Well, and some people, their hands start giving out...
0:12:42.0 CJ: Oh, I know.
0:12:43.7 AH: That's one thing, maybe quilting will keep people a little...
0:12:46.0 CJ: Keeps you... I've got one finger now that's kind of crooked. It won't straighten out but it doesn't bother my quilting.
0:12:51.5 AH: No?
0:12:51.8 CJ: I don't know why that one did that. I don't have arthritis, but it's kind of bent there anyway.
0:12:56.7 AH: Well, maybe you've hurt it sometime...
[laughter]
0:12:58.5 CJ: Must have.
0:13:00.0 AH: Seems like as you get older then hurts that didn't bother you when you were younger start stiffening up.
0:13:03.3 AH: But then, so did you have brothers and sisters or?
0:13:08.9 CJ: No, I have only one sister.
0:13:11.4 AH: She did... She quilt too?
0:13:12.1 CJ: No, she's a knitter.
0:13:14.1 AH: She's a knitter.
0:13:14.7 CJ: She's a knitter.
0:13:15.2 AH: Yeah.
0:13:15.4 CJ: Well, I was a sewer, and she learned to knit after she got married, but she lives out in Arizona now. She used to live at Nisswa, but her son and daughter-in-law live out there. So, she spent a few winters out there and liked it, and after her husband died, she decided to move out there. So she's been out there now for about five years.
0:13:30.8 AH: Oh, where does she live?
0:13:32.8 CJ: At Prescott Valley.
0:13:34.5 AH: In Prescott?
0:13:35.6 CJ: Prescott Valley. She's right in town. Prescott is a town about eight miles north of there. Prescott Valley is about eight miles south there.
0:13:42.7 AH: That's what I was asking.
0:13:43.8 CJ: Yeah.
0:13:44.2 AH: We have a little place, a kind of vacation place north of Phoenix. Oh, it's not as far north as Prescott, but we just have started going down there and our daughter lives down in Mesa, down in the city.
0:14:00.4 CJ: Oh, that area.
0:14:00.5 AH: So, and we didn't wanna be down in the city, so...
0:14:03.1 CJ: Oh, it's getting so.. my neighbors across the road lived in Mesa for 20 years and they... Well, they formerly lived in Minnesota and they liked it up here and they came up one summer and saw this house across the road for sale. They bought it. And as soon as they sold their house, they moved up here. They've been up here seven years now, since he retired, he was in construction work down there.
0:14:21.7 AH: Mesa used to be a really, really nice small town with orange groves all over, just oh, orange... The orange blossoms just...
0:14:30.8 CJ: But now it's just a...
0:14:32.9 AH: Well, it's just a big...
0:14:34.3 CJ: Well that and Scottsdale the whole thing is it's just all...
0:14:36.9 AH: It's so busy.
0:14:37.9 CJ: Yeah.
0:14:38.3 AH: So busy.
0:14:38.9 CJ: Everybody goes... Well, not everybody, a lot of people, we have a lot of people from around here that go down to Mesa and Scottsdale for the winter.
0:14:47.4 AH: Well, I decided I didn't wanna be down in the city.
0:14:50.1 CJ: Yeah.
0:14:50.3 AH: And we found a place farther up in the hill and it's separate. It's a little town and it's about 30 miles from where my daughter lives and that's close enough.
0:15:01.8 CJ: Well, you can always drive and go and see them, and that way.
0:15:05.4 AH: It's close enough. I don't believe in living right on top of your children, anyway, or your relatives. But I guess we should be back on quilting, but so you made... Well, it says how many years did you make quilts? Well, we don't know yet.
0:15:22.3 CJ: I said then there was a time in between there when I didn't. Then when I got up in school, I had an apartment lived right in the school when I taught up north and I had my evening some nights free. So, that's when I started... I think I made... First one I made when I was up there was building blocks. I can remember that. And then I finished...
0:15:40.8 AH: Is that like Tumbling Blocks?
0:15:42.1 CJ: Tumbling Blocks. The building block. That's what... And then I see, what was another one that and I made when I was up there. Oh, that Maple Leaf one, I've got that on my bed. I'll show you that later. I made a Maple Leaf one too. And I did that one up, 'cause I... At that time I didn't have a quilting frame. And I remember when I got ready to put it together, I laid it down in the hall. I had lots of room out there to put it... Put the backing on it and put the filling in it and get it basted it so I could start quilting it. And that one...
0:16:11.0 AH: That you basted it, you didn't pin it.
0:16:14.1 CJ: No, I basted it at that time.
0:16:14.2 AH: Yeah.
0:16:14.2 CJ: That's one advantage. When we have our quilt club meetings in the morning, we can baste it and we'd put them on these banquet tables, tape the backing down, put the filler in, put the top on and pin it and start basting. And in about an hour, it's all done. You bring it home. You're ready to go start quilting.
0:16:32.9 AH: Our quilt does that. Our group does that too, but we baste them on a big frame.
0:16:35.6 CJ: Oh, we baste them on the tables and that works. And some of them pin baste them, too. They like them pinned, but they're going...
0:16:42.4 AH: I don't know, I've pin basted it a couple small, but my thread is always getting caught on a pin.
0:16:46.9 CJ: Well, that's what they say too. But we have one gal I know that likes to do pin basting. Then she usually does machine quilting on it too.
0:16:53.7 AH: Yeah.
0:16:54.0 AH: That seems to be...
0:16:55.1 CJ: The way that of doing that.
0:16:56.1 AH: And then if... If you know where you're gonna quilt, I guess you can pin...
0:17:00.4 CJ: Yeah. Yeah.
0:17:00.5 AH: Where you're not going to be using or running over it. But I really think that basting them on that big frame. We square them up really well. We square up, we measure them and then make sure that everything is really square and level and measured. And I think the quilts come out so nice. They come out so smooth, flat square. And I see people, oh, with other quilts a lot of times. And they haven't done that. I don't mean they haven't taped everything. And they get these rippley edges that won't place...
0:17:34.6 CJ: Well, they seem to...
0:17:35.0 AH: Going out of shape. I think...
0:17:38.9 CJ: Putting them on the table seems to work real well with us.
0:17:41.4 AH: I should think that would work there.
0:17:43.4 CJ: It isn't a wrinkle in the back when we tape them.
0:17:45.7 AH: Right.
0:17:46.1 CJ: We need you to... If it's a big quilt, we use four tables. If it's a smaller and we use three and if it's a wall hanging, probably just two. And like I say, two of us sit there and thread needles and the rest of them start basting. And one morning we did, we basted five, I think four quilts and the wall hanging.
0:18:01.9 AH: Really. I think the most we've ever done at our group is three.
0:18:04.3 CJ: We get there about 9:30 AM And then when we get done, we have coffee and visit. And I know one morning we did five, including that wall hanging. Last time we didn't do any, we were tracing patterns. They're going to make a quilt for the new children's museum that's going to start in Brainerd. They had some patterns. I don't know where they had gotten them, but they were like little boys and girls that were doing things like playing hockey and basketball and things like that. You probably, maybe you've seen that pattern. I hadn't seen them.
0:18:33.4 AH: No.
0:18:33.6 CJ: Anyway, we were tracing patterns 'cause we're going to hand them out at our next quilt club meeting and have each one of the members make one or two. So, I don't know how many blocks...
0:18:42.5 AH: Applique them on something.
0:18:43.3 CJ: No, they'll be pieced.
0:18:44.3 AH: They're pieces.
0:18:45.3 CJ: They're pieced. Have you seen that?
0:18:47.9 AH: Pieced children? No, I haven't.
0:18:50.8 CJ: I don't know, but I saw them...
0:18:52.6 AH: There must be a total pattern for it. Sounds like a neat pattern though to have. I sent for one. Oh, I started getting that too then.
0:19:04.5 CJ: Well, no, this one is just a sample copy. This one I've been getting, there was one here where the children's...
0:19:11.3 AH: There's so many patterns.
0:19:12.5 CJ: Oh, I know that. So many.
0:19:15.5 AH: You can get patterns from everywhere. Where did you get the patterns when you started?
0:19:20.9 CJ: Oh, probably like from The Farmer magazine, or Cappers Weekly or...
0:19:28.2 AH: Didn't your mom have the wedding ring pattern?
0:19:32.0 CJ: My mother had the wedding ring pattern, and my mother got the Joseph's Coat pattern, but where that came from, I don't know. I've still got it upstairs, I never thought to look and see, but I think probably The Farmer or Cappers Weekly we used to take that paper, or Farm Journal, some of those country magazines had those...
0:19:48.8 AH: Did they have a pattern every issue, or did they just advertise them?
0:19:54.9 CJ: They advertised them. They were about 10 cents a piece, the patterns cost. [chuckle] Looking to see, there was a little pattern for a little girl in one of these just recently that I was looking at.
0:20:05.5 AH: Oh, well I'd get that one but I haven't seen it.
0:20:07.8 CJ: This one just came yesterday, this isn't the one I was...
0:20:12.2 AH: It's a nice magazine. I think it's pretty nice.
0:20:14.6 CJ: Or there's so many of those magazines now.
0:20:17.6 AH: Oh.
0:20:17.7 CJ: Here's this Quick and Easy Quilting, and then there's... Oh, I've got some other ones here, too.
0:20:22.2 AH: Oh, I see you get quite a few [......].
0:20:23.9 CJ: This is Quilting Today, this is Quilting Tips, I don't remember which magazine I saw that one, but it was a little girl.
0:20:31.5 AH: Well, I was more interested in the pieced...
0:20:35.6 CJ: Yeah, the pieced. That's the way it was put together, it was pieced, anyway.
0:20:39.3 AH: So somebody in your group is designing the quilt and putting it, coordinating it.
0:20:43.8 CJ: Yeah. We've got about 80 members in our club, and we've got some people there, they're not only quilters, they're artists, they're just fantastic.
0:20:51.7 AH: We've got a couple in our group too. When you combine the two, isn't it something?
0:20:55.9 CJ: Oh, we have some that are... This Dawn Hall, have you heard of her?
0:21:00.3 AH: I've heard the name.
0:21:00.4 CJ: And she has been down in Dallas and she's had articles in magazines, she dyes her material and designs quilts and things. And another one is Carolyn Abbott, from Brainerd, and Woody... Wilma Crawford is another one, she's a fantastic quilter. She gets about...
0:21:19.1 AH: Is she in... Are any of these anyone that would suit the Minnesota Quilt Project, older quilters...
0:21:28.6 CJ: Well, no, they're not. They're probably in their 50s, they're not as old as I am, anyway.
0:21:33.0 AH: We're kind of trying to get back into the history of quilting and where you got your patterns and stuff like that, where you got your material, but we're always looking for other people to interview, even if they weren't in the Quilt Discovery Days.
0:21:47.7 CJ: May I ask, why was I chosen out of our whole group?
0:21:50.5 AH: Well, for one thing, you're living. I don't mean to be blunt...
[laughter]
0:21:55.7 AH: A lot of the people brought in old quilts, but they didn't know anything about the quilt maker, for instance. It was their grandmother but they didn't know anything much about it, or they bought it at a garage sale, but when they brought in old quilts a lot of them don't even quilt, they brought in quilts to be registered in the History Project, but you brought in quilts that you had made, and see, we're interested in talking to people that made quilts, and are still living, and are still making quilts, so we can kinda get the history and then what you're doing now, and what you see as changes.
0:22:35.4 CJ: When I got that letter from you the first time, I called Marsha Stevens. Remember, she was the girl you contacted, and I said, "Did anybody else get contacted?" And she said, "Well, not that I know of."
0:22:45.3 AH: There were two others out of Brainerd.
0:22:47.9 CJ: Who were the others?
0:22:49.5 AH: An Alma Esser, and she's 84 or 85.
0:22:55.7 CJ: She must not come to the meetings, 'cause I'm not...
0:22:57.3 AH: I don't think she's a Brainerd, I don't think she belongs to Pinetree Patchworkers.
0:23:02.3 CJ: Well, I know, I helped that...
0:23:02.8 AH: And then there's Virgina Smith... Or Vivian Smithburg. And we had several other ladies on the list, but either they were just... They hadn't made the quilts. They were the owners, but they hadn't made...
0:23:16.5 CJ: Because I interviewed... Or documented some quilts, and even some quilt blocks, from a lady from Nisswa. For the life of me, I can't remember her name, and she brought in some old quilts, too, that day.
0:23:32.8 AH: Well, let's see. What we copied out of here from Brainerd. How about Darlene Dannel? That was from Nisswa. Darlene Dannel was...
0:23:44.1 CJ: No, that name doesn't sound...
0:23:47.1 AH: And her mother, or something, would have been Cora... Or her mother-in-law, Cora Johnson Dannel. And let me see what else I've got. I've got one from Crosby.
0:24:00.0 CJ: We must have had about 30 people that brought in quilts that day, we worked all day.
0:24:03.2 AH: Oh, there were quite a few, yeah.
0:24:04.6 CJ: And then the night before, I know you'd been at the museum and documented all those quilts.
0:24:09.3 AH: Well, I wasn't there the night before.
0:24:11.2 CJ: Oh.
0:24:11.4 AH: But the numbers... Well, the highest number I've got here is 76.
0:24:16.3 CJ: Oh, that was a...
0:24:17.6 AH: That was Carolyn Abbott. She brought in quilts from an Ingeborg Stromberg.
0:24:24.2 CJ: Oh. And Carolyn Abbott, I said she's the one of those that are artists, she's just fantastic.
0:24:29.5 AH: And then I wrote one lady up at Longville, but she couldn't be interviewed because her husband had just died, she was leaving for Wisconsin, where he was going to be buried and stuff.
0:24:40.4 CJ: Did you have any from Morrison County, or didn't you do Morrison?
0:24:44.0 AH: Where is Morrison?
0:24:44.9 CJ: Morrison County is the county... Little Falls is in Morrison County.
0:24:49.6 AH: We did a Quilt Discovery Day in Little Falls.
0:24:52.9 CJ: 'Cause I know a lot of people down there.
0:24:54.5 AH: Indiana Gehant, she's the Chairman over there, and I... She should be interviewing people over in that area, or being responsible for the interviews in that area. The only reason... To tell you the truth, I was Chairman in Stillwater, where I live, but they didn't have anybody up in Brainerd. We had taken the interviewing training that had gone around, so I've been all over the... Well, not all over the state, but I went to a lot of those.
0:25:24.7 CJ: Oh, I imagine you did.
0:25:25.4 AH: But then they needed somebody to come up around Brainerd and interview a few people, and I said, "Well... " Nobody else could [laughter] and I don't mind driving as long as the weather's...
0:25:36.5 CJ: This time of the year... It's alright.
0:25:38.2 AH: It's beautiful. Oh.
0:25:38.9 CJ: Today.
0:25:39.3 AH: It's beautiful. My husband said he would've come too. And then we'd have gone over and seen what one of the casinos looked like. We are casino people.
0:25:47.8 CJ: I was over there a couple weeks. Then I lost a few nickels. [laughter] oh.
0:25:50.1 AH: That's, about all I lose too.
0:25:52.1 CJ: I don't play the big machines. I have more fun playing the little ones. I can have just as much fun doing that.
0:25:57.0 AH: Well, I don't know anything about them.
0:25:58.9 CJ: All you have to do is put your nickel in and push the button and the thing goes around. You don't even have to pull the handle anymore.
0:26:03.6 AH: Oh, well, at least I knew enough to pull a handle, but as far as playing any other games.
0:26:07.4 CJ: Oh, I don't know either. I don't. And there's.
0:26:09.7 AH: He said, well, someday we'd drive up the town and look at one of them.
0:26:12.9 CJ: Oh, it's a fun thing to do. The food it's worth going there to eat. The food is just out of this world.
0:26:17.7 AH: And then I went down past the one the other day after I interviewed Vivian Smithburg I went through Garrison, down to Mille Lacs.
0:26:25.3 CJ: That's allways the one I go to.
0:26:27.8 AH: But oh, the drive was so pretty that day.
0:26:30.5 CJ: Oh.
0:26:31.8 AH: It was late afternoon. By the time I finished, it was really.
0:26:34.2 CJ: Well. They say right now, of course the wind last Friday and Saturday took care of a lot of the leaves are not the trees have. And this morning, the man from the KVBR radio station was up in his plane. And he said there wasn't so much red anymore. It was more yellow. Like the Oak trees are turning yellow because that wind last Friday and Saturday took care of a lot of the and the week before my son was up on the north shore. And he said there were places where it was just beautiful. But then he said some places they hadn't turned yet.
0:27:03.6 AH: This has been a strange year all way round.
0:27:05.3 CJ: Oh yes, it certainly has.
0:27:07.8 AH: Anyway, those were the other names that I had out of Brainerd, but not knowing the people in Brainerd not being here myself made it hard to choose which ones out of those. See, I just read through all those physical analysis.
0:27:24.8 CJ: Well, I said...
0:27:25.5 AH: Tried to get.
0:27:26.3 CJ: Now there's another lady Mabel Gilbert, but she just joined our club about three years ago. She is 84, but she had never started doing quilting until she was about 80. She made each of her grandchildren a quilt in the last few years.
0:27:39.3 AH: We wanna know what we were doing or what you were doing back in the '30s even before that, if possible.
0:27:45.7 CJ: But well, I said, I've always liked to sew a new craft work. I think I made my first dress when I was about eight years old, a...
0:27:51.5 AH: On a sewing machine.
0:27:53.7 CJ: A blue, Indianhead dress trimmed in yellow. [laughter]
0:27:56.7 AH: See. I know Indianhead.
[laughter]
0:27:58.4 AH: A lot of people wouldn't.
0:28:00.3 CJ: Well, I'll say you're talking about Indianhead. I wanted some red Indianhead a few years ago and I went up to Nisswa. It was a fabric store there. And I said, do you have any Indianhead? She said, what is Indianhead? I thought, well, of course people nowadays wouldn't know what that was.
0:28:14.6 AH: It was a wonderful fabric. Well. Nice even weave...
0:28:17.7 CJ: And there was a sturdy fabric, I remember that dress was a...
0:28:21.3 AH: We used to use it a lot for things like tablecloths and napkins too.
0:28:26.3 CJ: That was that dress...
0:28:27.9 AH: Curtains.
0:28:28.8 CJ: Curtains.
0:28:28.8 AH: Yeah.
0:28:29.3 CJ: Could use it for most anything. Aprons...
0:28:31.8 AH: Nice colors.
0:28:32.0 CJ: Yes, but it was a bright blue about this shade of blue with trimmed in yellow.
[laughter]
0:28:39.4 AH: Ooh. [laughter] Really Scandinavian.
[laughter]
0:28:42.4 AH: And that was when you were eight.
0:28:44.0 CJ: And when I was eight years old, I made, my mother helped me, of course. And it was just plain. I remember it had pockets and they had yellow bands, on the pockets and yellow around the cuffs or on the sleeves. And mother must have helped me with the collar. 'Cause as I remember it had a kind of a Peter Pan collar and I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to sew that, but I always loved to sew and do craft work.
0:29:04.2 AH: Yeah, I do too. I think there's certain people that like to put things together.
0:29:10.9 CJ: And embroider and all of that sort of stuff. I was always doing something, making something and...
0:29:15.7 AH: I think, well, I'm sure there are still a lot of people that are doing that.
0:29:19.7 CJ: I said I'm not a natural artist. I said, I'm a very good copycat. That's what I always say. In fact, I don't know if you wanna say...
0:29:28.5 AH: Or adapter.
0:29:29.7 CJ: Well, I'm gonna try to do now before my birthday, I said, I'm a copycat. I wanna make this wall hanging for Halloween and I'm starting.
[laughter]
0:29:42.0 AH: Oh, that's adorable. Sure. I don't see why you can't.
0:29:45.9 CJ: I had all kinds of patterns from school, all kinds of Jack-o-lanterns. I went up and looked through them...
0:29:49.7 AH: You get every leaf you need right out here in the yard.
0:29:51.7 CJ: And fabrics. I said, I've got a lot of fabrics. And I've got all my Jack-o-lanterns traced and put on freezer paper and now I'm starting to base them. But I'm gonna have to work awfully fast to get 'em done.
0:30:05.4 AH: Oh, do you use freezer paper a lot for your applique?
0:30:08.7 CJ: This is the first time I've ever used freezer paper.
0:30:11.0 AH: Well, see how you like it.
0:30:13.4 CJ: Well, this is my first attempt to doing something like that, but this is...
0:30:16.5 AH: That will be cute. I like to...
0:30:21.1 CJ: Like I said I could have ordered the kit, but I thought, "Oh, why should I order the kit when I've got all this material around it all the patterns." So I said, that's what I'm doing.
0:30:29.7 AH: That'll be cute. Your grandchildren will get a kick out of it.
0:30:33.5 CJ: I think they will too.
0:30:34.3 AH: Yeah. And they all live near here too?
0:30:37.4 CJ: Oh, Nisswa, well, the oldest boys.
0:30:39.5 AH: Nisswa, I think that's near.
0:30:41.5 CJ: The oldest boy's in the city he's just graduated from the U and then the second boy is, lives out East of Brainerd. And then girl is in a sophomore in high school this year. So I just have three grandchildren. 'Cause I just had one, but say I'm gonna put the... turn the oven on 'cause I've got a hot dish in the oven.
0:31:04.3 AH: Okay.... Well there I just wanted to play back to see how we...
0:31:10.4 CJ: How we're doing.
0:31:10.6 AH: We'll see if that... I'm not very good at recording things. I'm not a very experienced...
0:31:16.4 CJ: I don't know anything about a recorder.
0:31:18.1 AH: That one seems to work just.
0:31:19.7 CJ: Oh. Good.
0:31:20.4 AH: I got that because one of my friends is blind and we exchange tapes.
0:31:25.7 CJ: Oh.
0:31:26.3 AH: We had lost touch for maybe 20 years. And then I finally got a card from her that and the writing wasn't... well, I didn't know if the writing was hers, but the signature was real odd. So I called her and we were talking and then she said, "Well, you know that I lost my sight." And I said, "Oh no, I didn't. But I wondered why the handwriting on that card was one handwriting. And then the signature was odd." She said, well, anyway, we exchange tapes, so I bought that...
0:31:58.3 CJ: Oh, that's a good idea.
0:32:00.2 AH: Yeah. And she gets her tapes. We can mail 'em back and forth the service for the blind, but you mail 'em free.
0:32:08.0 CJ: Oh. I didn't know you could mail 'em for free.
0:32:09.5 AH: Yeah. It's just, well...
0:32:11.3 CJ: I know that they have these talking books and things like that. I had an uncle that was blind and he used to get those talking books so that he had something to for... He couldn't watch TV and he could listen to the radio, but I mean, these talking books, he enjoyed those no end for around many years.
0:32:25.6 AH: Yeah. And they put 'em out real current. Yeah. I mean, they're very current.
0:32:29.2 CJ: This was all he's been dead about 20 years or more than that. Probably 25 years. But I mean, he got those books probably when they first started coming out. I don't know when they started...
0:32:41.2 AH: Yeah, no, we get one once in a while to take in the car because when you're driving very far, the radio stations are real awful and so once in a while, we'll take one, you can get them from the library.
0:32:54.6 CJ: Oh, I know the library has just an endless amount of things like that you can get nowadays. Well, how are we coming?
0:33:02.8 AH: Well, I think we're doing pretty good. We've gone kind of through your personal history, because you've mentioned that you were raised near here and that you went to school...
0:33:11.7 CJ: Little falls.
0:33:13.3 AH: In Little falls. And did you have a teacher's college there?
0:33:15.5 CJ: Well, no. We had a teacher's training. I went to teacher's training one year after high school and I was licensed.
0:33:20.8 AH: So it's like, you got a certificate.
0:33:22.8 CJ: Certificate I could teach in rural schools. And then we had to go to summer school after two years to renew our certificate for five years. And I still used to go pretty often in the summer. That was the only way I got my degree. Well, I never did get my degree. I got enough credits for my degree, but I took too many tours at the end without, so I ended up with 193 and a half credits, but I didn't have the last nine. I think it was, I had to go back for one more credit practice teaching after I had taught for about 25 years. And I didn't do that. But I was teaching where I didn't have to have a four-year degree. So I was okay.
0:34:00.1 AH: You always taught in elementary school.
0:34:02.3 CJ: Elementary.
0:34:03.9 AH: And then you got married in 1935.
0:34:08.1 CJ: '39.
0:34:10.1 AH: Oh, that's right. You made the quilt in '37. Yeah. Started it in... So let's take a look at your quilts. I'm anxious to see them anyway. Did you... Was your mom a real stickler for getting everything just so?
0:34:25.4 CJ: Oh, not, not really. I mean, but...
0:34:28.5 AH: This one, I can see that somebody was a stickler.
0:34:31.4 CJ: But I tell you what I did too. I took a piece of the muslin, 36 inches wide and I did...oh, let's unfold it. I did one whole row, as you can see that would then down to here. Then I put it away. And when I started the second half of it, I wasn't watching. And I had done about maybe a fourth, that whole line. And I went to match it and it wouldn't match. I hadn't been turning the seams under quite as much. And it would, so I had to do a lot of ripping. So then I but I can say, I was gonna...
0:35:01.6 AH: And this pattern it has to...
0:35:03.9 CJ: It has to come out just right to make those petals match...
0:35:08.2 AH: To make all the circles.
0:35:08.8 CJ: And I don't remember which side it was, but anyway, I did a lot of ripping and then I did them over again and then I, when I got the top done, then I sewed them together and then did the row down the middle. That was the one, the last one I did.
0:35:24.1 AH: And then that's the joining.
0:35:28.8 CJ: Yeah. And then it, by doing that, then it made a scalloped edge. You see around it.
0:35:31.5 AH: Made a beautiful edge. You finished it so nice. I like that. But you were pretty much particular. 'Cause I've seen a lot of points that don't come together. Like all of these.
0:35:44.6 CJ: Well, I said, this one probably was easier than I said, I'm sewing with it.
0:35:47.1 AH: With it now. Now this is all pieced. It's not mounted on a muslin or something.
0:35:52.3 CJ: This was appliqued, it was appliqued on there.
0:35:55.1 AH: Oh, it's applique.
0:35:56.1 CJ: Yeah. I had to turn all those edges down and then I blind-stitched them all down.
0:36:00.6 AH: Ah, okay. Now I've gotta take a look and see. You started with the 36 wide...
0:36:06.7 AH: Thirty six wide piece and then I just laid 'em up. And I don't remember if I did any marking or not. I can't remember marking or anything. Then [you'd get those pieces and get them to fit in. If they didn't, then you turn it under, I suppose, a little bit more.
0:36:24.1 AH: I suppose.
0:36:24.7 CJ: 'Cause they all had to come out, you know. See then this one and then they kind of go slightly...
0:36:30.9 AH: Beautiful.
0:36:32.7 CJ: This was fun. But I said, now these, now I know that some of these fabrics were about 10 cents a yard and we got them from Sears Roebuck or Montgomery Wards, because mother had dress. My sister had a dress of this. And now this one...
0:36:47.6 AH: I like that one.
0:36:48.6 CJ: I had a plaid dress of that. And my sister had a..no where's that peachy colored one... Maybe that's in that other quilt, I guess. Anyway. And I had a dress like this. I had, when I got married, I made some house dresses and this is one of them, the green one, that green one was one.
0:37:13.8 AH: This is a pretty one. This is cute with the little...
0:37:15.9 CJ: Yeah, that was, but some of these pieces were some of those that I said we bought, they were those cutaways. This is from a dress... My sister had a dress and that was a pretty dress. Yeah.
0:37:29.9 CJ: This plaid one - that was one of mine I know. I was trying to see if there some more here of mother's.
0:37:39.6 AH: This is a pretty one. It looks like it's been almost chintz finished... Or see if they were cutaways. Well, of course all these were new fabrics.
0:37:47.6 CJ: They were all new fabrics. I never did to do any quilt...oh, I made my, when I made polyester, something like that with old slacks and things, but most of the time I like to work with new fabrics.
AH:And then do you now wash all your fabrics?
0:38:01.0 CJ: That was why I do that.
0:38:06.0 AH: Yeah, because you mentioned the muslin pulled up or something on that one. This is beautiful. You did such a nice job on it.
0:38:14.0 AH: But I said, when it comes to quilting, I said, I'm not the best. Look at those stitches there. You know, like I said, there's Woody Crawford. I bet she could have 10 stitches. I'm lucky to have five stitches to an inch.
0:38:23.0 AH: Oh, well this was one of your first ones, maybe you'd do more now.
0:38:30.6 CJ: Well, I don't know. That one I had too heavy a batt in it to do that.
0:38:31.7 AH: Yeah, that one looks like looks like it's got a fat batt almost.
0:38:34.6 CJ: Now this one is, this was the one I made...
0:38:36.7 AH: Is this your sampler?
0:38:37.7 CJ: This is my sampler quilt.
0:38:38.3 AH: Did you make that in a class or did you make it up on your own?
0:38:42.2 CJ: No I did this one at home. I did this one at home.
0:38:43.8 AH: Where did you choose the patterns?
0:38:45.2 CJ: Oh, I just I went through all my quilt books and I picked out the patterns that I liked.
0:38:48.3 AH: All that you thought...
0:38:49.1 CJ: And I bought... I went to town.
0:38:50.3 AH: Oh there's a lot of stars.
0:38:51.7 CJ: I went to town and I bought 13 different kinds of fabrics.
0:38:55.8 AH: Oh, like a yard and a half a yard.
0:38:57.1 CJ: A half a yard each one. And then I came home and then I decided what blocks I wanted it to be.
0:39:05.4 AH: Beautiful.
0:39:05.5 CJ: And I've got...
0:39:05.8 AH: Some pretty rows.
0:39:06.0 CJ: And some place I've got a record of what... I think its upstairs. And I've got 30 blocks.
0:39:10.9 AH: Let's see if we can name quite a few of them.
0:39:13.2 CJ: Thirty, 30 blocks in here.
0:39:14.3 AH: Yeah.
0:39:14.4 CJ: Well, of course that's the log cabin and the fan.
0:39:18.7 AH: Yeah.
0:39:19.1 CJ: And the star.
0:39:20.1 AH: The eight point star and the pinwheel.
0:39:22.0 CJ: Oh I had a Texas Star I think is one.
0:39:26.4 AH: There's a lot of different stars.
0:39:28.2 CJ: Yeah, there is.
0:39:28.8 AH: There's Rail Fence and Dutchman's Puzzle.
0:39:30.6 CJ: The one up there in the corner isn't that one. What's that one?
0:39:34.0 AH: I don't know.
0:39:35.7 CJ: I should have brought that.
0:39:36.4 AH: It's some variation of Barn Door, but it's not a Barn Door that I...
0:39:40.0 CJ: Yeah. The only thing I wished afterwards.
0:39:42.9 AH: Jacob's Ladder...
0:39:43.0 CJ: That I would not have used my pink in it. I was, after I put it together...
0:39:48.0 AH: That pale pink?
0:39:48.8 CJ: Yeah. Somebody said they liked it and I said, I think I kinda liked it better if I had stayed away from that pink.
0:39:55.6 AH: Well, you spaced it real well, so it is not...
0:39:57.0 CJ: Actually, that's what I had to do after I had them all done.
0:40:01.5 AH: Yeah. I do that too. I lay it out on the floor and leave them for a couple days.
0:40:05.3 CJ: You can't tell what it's going to... And my backing.
0:40:07.9 AH: This is a pretty backing. Is that like a [0:40:08.5] ____.
0:40:08.9 CJ: I bet. I bought this material at Brainerd. This I bought out at Pierz or at Genola. I love that backing on that one.
0:40:14.3 AH: I'm hoping to get over there this afternoon. Is it a polished apple, I haven't seen that...
0:40:20.9 CJ: It's kind of a polished cotton anyway. And I just love that backing on that. And that was on sale the day I bought it. I think I got it for a dollar a yard.
0:40:29.2 AH: They have some good sales over there, the Genola...
0:40:30.8 CJ: The other material had been about $4 a yard, the day I went in it was $2 a yard.
0:40:38.6 AH: Oh good.
0:40:39.0 CJ: So I wasn't planning and then when I...
0:40:39.7 AH: And you just decided you were going to make quilt...
0:40:41.2 CJ: Well, I was deciding I happened to be in the fabric shop that day there was a sale on it and that was... So then I stood there and I picked out all the stuff that I wanted.
0:40:49.5 AH: Yep, yep.
0:40:49.9 CJ: Before I came home.
0:40:50.7 AH: Yep, might as well.
0:40:51.6 CJ: Yeah.
0:40:52.0 AH: Because oh that's beautiful. That's beautiful upside down.
0:40:54.1 CJ: This one is the one I said I made where I was and after I got married and left teaching. This one is...
0:41:02.4 AH: I wonder I hope that this is one that you had documented.
0:41:05.7 CJ: Well I think I rather think it is but I'm not real sure about that one.
0:41:10.8 AH: Well you've got it written tag on it and before you said you put a written tag on it I thought maybe it's one you had had.
0:41:16.3 CJ: Yeah.
0:41:17.2 AH: Now what do you call this one?
0:41:18.6 CJ: This one is a variation of Grandmother's Flower Garden. See I'm making one there, but these are the smaller ones. And they were put together in hexagon pieces and this was all done by hand. Even sewing these triangles in. 'Cause I didn't have a sewing machine then.
0:41:30.9 AH: Oh you didn't have a sewing machine?
0:41:32.5 CJ: Well, I didn't have a sewing machine until a couple years later so I did it all...
0:41:35.3 AH: When did you make this one?
0:41:36.5 CJ: In '41 or '42. What does it say on the back of that?
0:41:39.6 AH: I don't know, I didn't look. Made in '41 or '42.
0:41:42.7 CJ: Now that was the year I wasn't teaching. After I was married.
0:41:45.6 AH: I sure wish I could get the green material this weight now.
0:41:48.8 CJ: Oh.
0:41:49.1 AH: That you've got on that back.
0:41:49.8 CJ: Yeah. That was different 'cause... This was different than the green here see? I bought this first then I bought this afterwards. And I suppose maybe 25 cents I think I sent to Montgomery Ward's for it probably or something.
0:42:03.2 AH: Do you they... Do you have any idea what material this was?
0:42:06.9 CJ: Just percale.
0:42:08.2 AH: Well, it's awful fine percale.
0:42:11.6 CJ: Yeah.
0:42:12.3 AH: It feels like a Peter Pan.
0:42:15.0 CJ: I'm sure it wasn't because I don't think I spent... I'm sure I sent for that material or maybe bought it at Penney's in Little Falls. I mean that was about the only place there was for it.
0:42:25.1 AH: Yeah.
0:42:25.3 CJ: Now see here this...
0:42:26.4 AH: It's funny that all the stores like that used to sell fabrics.
0:42:29.7 CJ: Oh sure.
0:42:30.2 AH: And now none of them sell fabrics anymore.
0:42:32.4 CJ: I know it. When I wanted to make my niece...
0:42:34.1 AH: This is a beautiful pattern.
0:42:35.6 CJ: I love this pattern.
0:42:37.4 AH: Do you still have this pattern?
0:42:39.2 CJ: Mm-hmm.
0:42:39.2 AH: Do you know where you got it?
0:42:40.3 CJ: Upstairs. Do you want me to go get it after a while?
0:42:43.3 AH: Oh!
0:42:43.6 CJ: I can go get it. I got a box of patterns upstairs. I'll go up there after awhile and go get them.
0:42:47.6 AH: Oh I'd like to have a copy of it but I wondered where you had gotten them.
0:42:51.9 CJ: Well, it would probably the envelope is still there maybe we can tell. I'll go up and get it after.
0:42:55.9 AH: That would be wonderful.
0:42:57.2 CJ: Well, I've never seen one like this either.
0:42:58.9 AH: No I haven't either. That's why I'm so interested. Besides...
0:43:02.7 CJ: And these prints, and there again, I'm sure.
0:43:04.7 AH: I love things that you can sit and do.
0:43:06.8 CJ: I'm sure some of these prints were... See some of the prints are the same one that are in that...
0:43:12.6 AH: Oh, yeah.
0:43:14.0 CJ: This one right here remember.
0:43:15.3 AH: Mm-hmm.
0:43:15.9 CJ: And some of those others are the ones I used in that...double...
0:43:19.9 AH: Well, there's a lot more larger florals.
0:43:24.1 CJ: Yeah.
0:43:24.5 AH: See they aren't so little in tiny as they were, as more of more in that.
0:43:28.6 CJ: Yeah.
0:43:29.4 AH: See you're getting a few that are larger flowers, they're not big, but they're a...
0:43:36.0 CJ: Here was another one. This was a another dress...
0:43:40.8 AH: The colors are so pretty.
0:43:40.9 CJ: This was another dress that I had.
0:43:42.2 AH: This material is in that other quilt.
0:43:44.5 CJ: This brown was one that I had, this is another dress that I have. This is that one... This was the one I had too.
0:43:51.0 AH: I like your border very much too, I wonder... When you got the pattern, I wonder if the...
0:43:58.0 CJ: Border was.. It showed it with that border.
0:44:00.2 AH: That's wonderful. I love it.
0:44:04.4 CJ: This one has been on the bed, it's getting soiled.
0:44:07.6 AH: This is the batting in this one too.
0:44:09.7 CJ: Yeah. Probably Mountain Mist, that's what I used to buy.
0:44:12.5 AH: There's a place here that's coming apart.
0:44:14.9 CJ: Oh. Well, better fix that before I put it back upstairs again.
0:44:20.0 AH: Yeah, it's just little place... Tie a tiny knot there and finish that little bit but that's beautiful. That'd be pretty... I like that green though. They're trying to reproduce that green but it seem they don't quite yet.
0:44:43.7 CJ: This is that one I think I've made about 4 or 5 quilts of it, this is that tumbler pattern.
0:44:48.8 AH: Mm-hmm.
0:44:49.2 CJ: And this is a lady up in Longville has bought this one. This one I shouldn't have gotten such a heavy back for it I didn't realize.
0:44:55.6 AH: Because it's hard to quilt. And you can't take a real close stitch through that one.
0:44:57.4 CJ: Oh Absolutely. But I love the material I got on the back, I bought that at the same time.
0:45:02.1 AH: Oh that's beautiful.
0:45:02.9 CJ: At Minnesota Fabrics and that was a good deal buy on that one.
0:45:07.0 AH: Yeah.
0:45:07.4 CJ: But this is a good way to use up all...
0:45:08.8 AH: Do you have Minnesota Fabrics here?
0:45:11.3 CJ: No, we have a House of Fabrics in Brainerd. But Minnesota Fabrics is at St. Cloud, and Northwest Fabrics is at St. Cloud too.
0:45:19.5 AH: They have a pretty good supply, if you want real fine fabrics though, the quilt shop is probably finer.
0:45:24.9 CJ: This is the one I made from denim.
0:45:29.2 AH: Oh, it's all...
0:45:30.0 CJ: I just got the top done on this one.
0:45:33.2 AH: Now before we leave this one, this is a tumbler and it's probably at least full size.
0:45:36.7 CJ: It's about 89 by 104, I think.
0:45:40.0 AH: Oh it's probably almost queen...
0:45:41.9 CJ: It's about queen size I know.
0:45:44.1 AH: Do you mind saying how much you get for something like that?
0:45:47.9 CJ: I sold that one for $85.
0:45:48.6 AH: $85.
0:45:49.6 CJ: I mean 'cause it's made from scraps... The only material I bought was the back and that was a dollar a yard on sale and...
0:45:54.8 AH: It took you a long time just to get the piecing on that.
0:45:56.9 CJ: Machine piecing doesn't take long. I pieced it in a couple of days.
0:46:03.1 AH: A couple of days.
0:46:04.2 CJ: Yeah. But this is the one that...
0:46:07.0 AH: This is gonna weigh a ton.
0:46:07.4 CJ: It'd be a good camping quilt.
0:46:10.6 AH: What are you gonna put on the back of that?
0:46:13.4 CJ: I just got plain blue material for the back and I just need to use [0:46:14.7] ____.
0:46:17.1 AH: You gonna tie it.
0:46:19.0 CJ: I'm gonna tie it.
0:46:19.1 AH: I don't think you can do anything else unless you did on a machine but then this is the...
0:46:24.1 CJ: That's the one in the middle of this... I had made them before and if I knew that it's boys or girls whatever it was, if they used to play hockey or baseball, I used to put some... And I used to even put their zodiac sign on them.
0:46:34.3 AH: Where did you do all these things, on the fabrics? You cut them out.
0:46:36.4 CJ: On the fabrics, mm-hmm.
0:46:39.6 AH: Champion spark plug.
0:46:39.7 CJ: I love that. Yeah.
0:46:40.1 AH: That was that fabric?
(Tape side change)
0:00:00.0 AH: Wonderful quilt. Have you sold it or are you going to sell it?
0:00:04.5 CJ: A lady next... Across the pond wants it for her boy, so. Probably when I get it done.
0:00:05.7 Speaker 1: Awesome. And you did most... It's all machine applique?
0:00:09.5 CJ: It's all machine appliqued, yeah.
0:00:14.9 S1: Yeah, you're getting pretty good with your machine applique. It must have been fun picking out all these different things.
0:00:20.9 CJ: Some of those... Some of them I just... That house and that kite, and that owl and some of those, I just designed them myself. There is a hamburger, a cheese burger, and an ice-cream cone.
0:00:34.4 S1: Yeah. You know kids would just love this because they can lay under it and nod off.
0:00:37.9 CJ: I've made and sold ten of these.
0:00:41.7 S1: I see you mitered your corners up.
0:00:44.3 CJ: Yeah. I like to miter the corners. I don't know, I like that better than going straight. And then for the border, I just use well you know strips and go as far as I can because all the blocks... This one, I had too many heavy pieces of denim and that's what makes it so heavy.
0:00:58.1 S1: And it's all new denim, is it?
0:01:00.1 CJ: No. It's all used denim.
0:01:01.7 S1: It's all used? Oh, I thought maybe it was all stone washed because it looks so good and so even.
0:01:08.3 CJ: No. No. No. And I said some of them... I like the lighter weight ones but every once in a while you run into some of those heavy jeans, you know.
0:01:12.1 S1: Next time you'll have to put a pocket on one.
0:01:16.2 CJ: I don't like that. That makes it too heavy.
0:01:17.9 S1: Oh, I thought maybe for a Kleenex or something.
0:01:20.1 CJ: I suppose you could as far as that goes, I've never done that though.
0:01:24.6 S1: They're cute. This is really a charming quilt. I'm amazed at some of the fabrics you found. I can see where some of them came from but a lot of them I've never seen them.
0:01:37.4 CJ: Well I said after a while, I was really shopping around for them then I ended up with a lot of them.
0:01:41.9 S1: You will lay this out on the floor with your backing?
0:01:44.1 CJ: Well I'm going to take this one in and have our you know we'll baste it, you'll need a little bit of...
0:01:49.5 S1: You'll use a fat batt or just...
0:01:54.8 CJ: I'm going to use a blanket on this one because a batt is going to make it too heavy.
0:01:54.9 S1: I think so too, it's awful heavy now. Just to pick it up.
0:01:55.8 CJ: I've got some old blanket sheets that are gone to pieces and I think I can use them.
0:02:03.8 S1: That's a good fill too, and then they stay real good. Toward the edges they don't bunch.
0:02:08.8 CJ: Well did you see my gingerbread man down here too, with all the buttons on him?
0:02:13.3 S1: No, I didn't.
0:02:14.5 CJ: Right here. [chuckle]
0:02:15.3 S1: Oh, oh. That's cute. That's adorable.
0:02:18.2 CJ: And here is a carrot, and there's another owl, a leaf and an anchor.
0:02:23.9 S1: What's this one?
0:02:27.5 CJ: That's a man hunting.
0:02:28.9 S1: Oh I see, I couldn't tell from upside down.
0:02:29.0 CJ: And then all the football things and then the baseball.
0:02:30.4 S1: Oh some kid will just love this.
0:02:31.2 CJ: Well this fellow that, I think David's about a 25-years-old, but she thought he would like this.
0:02:37.7 S1: Oh I bet he will. You've got a lot of variety in your quilts.
0:02:43.4 CJ: Well I tell you, I don't take everybody upstairs to show them but we'll go upstairs and I'll just show you my room with all my fabrics and then I'll look for those patterns up there.
0:02:51.5 S1: Okay, I'll turn this off while we're... Oh I've just seen the prettiest Maple Leaf quilt and a Tumbling Blocks quilt that Mrs. Jenkins made while she was teaching school up North. Koochiching County? Is that Koochiching? I'm in here talking to this machine. We're gonna look at a pattern.
0:03:16.9 CJ: I never throw anything away as you can probably see.
0:03:22.5 S1: That's wonderful. This grandmother's flower garden. My golly.
0:03:28.8 CJ: Well that was my sis... I inherited those pieces.
0:03:31.8 S1: I was wondering because I...
0:03:33.2 CJ: Here is my Joseph's Coat pattern but now that...
0:03:38.1 S1: Oh, these are wonderful, you've saved them in the original things and they have post marks on them.
0:03:42.5 CJ: Wait a minute. This is the bird one.
0:03:46.4 S1: Look at that, the stamp on this was a cent and a half from Kansas City.
0:03:52.1 CJ: Yeah but that's these patterns, that's not the one that's in here. That's been stuck in another envelope. But wait a minute, wait a minute, here.
0:03:58.7 S1: But wait, I'm looking just to see the stamps and the things that tell you...
0:04:03.6 CJ: Here, here, here. Here is this one. Oh, wait a minute. Here is something, I found. Here we are, I didn't even know I had it.
0:04:10.4 S1: So you did have a copy. Oh this is the one you had. Sure, they gave you a copy.
0:04:17.8 CJ: That's the one you wanted. Oh I didn't even know... Oh here's another one. What a find this one is too. Let's see, what's this one?
0:04:25.0 S1: Oh I wish they...
0:04:26.0 CJ: Well here, this is variation of Grandmother's Flower Garden. What does this one say?
0:04:34.0 S1: This one they call Hexagon Bouquet, measures about 80 by 90.
0:04:40.1 CJ: And this is Joseph's Coat.
0:04:42.0 S1: Oh see so this... Okay, now I've got your...
0:04:44.8 CJ: Oh what a find that was, I didn't even know I had those anywhere.
0:04:48.8 S1: Oh good Lord. I'm glad you do. They gave you these copies.
0:04:53.5 CJ: This is Joseph's Coat. You didn't want that pattern, you want that pattern.
0:04:56.6 S1: Oh I'd like to have it.
0:04:57.6 CJ: You could have some, have some.
0:05:00.2 S1: Well, I'd like to make a copy or trace it because it's so pretty.
0:05:02.9 CJ: Let's see, this is Joseph's Coat. I guess all this stuff is together because I must have taken that with me.
0:05:13.5 S1: Samples from Wards.
0:05:14.3 CJ: That's the patterns for that. That's the pattern for this one.
0:05:18.7 S1: Is it? Oh you made them out of cardboard?
0:05:23.0 CJ: Yeah.
0:05:23.1 CJ: Oh that must be for your border?
0:05:24.4 S1: That was one... The big one...
0:05:25.0 CJ: And then for the hats.
0:05:25.3 S1: And is there one for the little tiny one, maybe?
0:05:31.3 S1: A little tiny one.
0:05:34.0 CJ: Well, let's see...
0:05:35.6 S1: The hexagon.
0:05:36.4 CJ: Here. Well that's not gonna be hard to trace those.
0:05:41.1 S1: No, no.
0:05:42.2 CJ: Now let's see what we got here.
0:05:42.5 S1: I'd like to trace that. If I had a copy machine. But that's wonderful. Sis, does it say on the back anything? Oh yes, Hexagon Bouquet. Three prints or plain pastel colors may be used for the flower. See I'm fascinated.
0:06:02.6 CJ: Well here, this must be where it came from, from a Comfort magazine.
0:06:07.0 S1: I never heard it, Comfort magazine.
0:06:07.8 CJ: That's when I was living at Little Falls, see this was my address at Little Falls.
0:06:11.6 S1: Okay. I'm trying to read. I can't see the post mark but it came from Kansas City, Hexagon Bouquet quilt.
0:06:21.2 CJ: Well, here is another quilt that I made.
0:06:24.9 S1: Augusta, Maine.
0:06:28.4 CJ: Here is another one. This one I made one for my sister for a gift and I made one for my cousin. This was an applique one.
0:06:36.4 S1: Oh that must have been beautiful. Did you cross hatch the quilting like that?
0:06:41.7 CJ: No I didn't... I can't remember that. But this was the applique and the applique [four?] goes on. Do you know the way those things go on?
0:06:48.3 S1: Yes I see all pointing up.
0:06:50.6 CJ: I did those in applique. Here's all my patterns that I saved from that.
[chuckle]
0:06:56.0 S1: Oh, is this the Ladies' Home Journal?
0:07:00.2 CJ: Yeah, I got that one from the Ladies' Home Journal.
0:07:01.8 S1: Well that one says, dah, dah, dah. I'm trying to read a date, they don't have the dates on these.
0:07:05.9 CJ: Well, it had to be in 1940, 41. Let's see, I was married in '39 and I taught school until '41, then I didn't teach in '41 and '42. And then in '43, I went back to teaching again.
0:07:17.0 S1: Oh but these are marvelous to have.
0:07:20.1 CJ: Now here, I don't know what this is.
0:07:21.5 S1: Which one is this? I'm looking to see why you saved it.
0:07:27.1 CJ: Well that one, that goes with this.
0:07:27.7 S1: Oh, it goes with...
0:07:27.9 CJ: That was the direction for...
0:07:29.3 S1: Powderpuff muslin.
0:07:32.8 CJ: Yeah, this is all...
0:07:34.0 S1: Oh, this is where they tell you how to make the quilt right here?
0:07:37.5 CJ: Here's the Maple Leaf pattern. Here's the Maple Leaf pattern.
0:07:37.6 S1: Alright, I don't wanna get these mixed up.
0:07:40.3 CJ: And I made one of these.
0:07:41.8 S1: Oh, that's great.
0:07:42.5 CJ: I made that one and sold it, but I didn't... I don't think I bought the pattern.
0:07:43.2 S1: I wanna put this back in the right envelope. These are a real treasure. Oh! Oh, the quilt history people will just go crazy when they see these.
0:08:02.2 CJ: I don't know how many...
0:08:02.5 S1: Or when they find out you've got...
0:08:04.8 CJ: I made some of these Bow Tie quilts, I gave them all to my friends...
0:08:09.1 S1: Now this is an Alice Brooks design, you can still buy Alice Brooks things in the newspaper.
0:08:13.8 CJ: This Bow Tie one, I made that and gave that to Diane Nagel when she was married.
0:08:18.5 S1: Oh now there's a postmark on this one.
0:08:25.0 CJ: And here's... This is not the... This is I think my Wedding Ring... This is another Wedding Ring, but I said I don't know, I'd gotten those patterns from someplace else.
0:08:36.4 S1: Oh these are wonderful. Oh, I'm really excited about these.
0:08:39.2 S1: Here's another Wedding Ring. This is probably the one I used, yeah, it must be.
0:08:46.1 S1: You made this Wedding Ring. You're not... Nothing else went with that.
0:08:51.2 CJ: No, I just put that in there 'cause I've got pieces...
0:08:55.0 S1: And this is a [Paige's?] pattern service from Cappers Weekly.
0:09:00.2 CJ: Yeah, I said Cappers Weekly.
0:09:00.3 S1: You think I'm repeating myself, I'm doing it because of the tape.
0:09:02.9 CJ: These are a bunch of patterns that somebody...
0:09:07.2 S1: Silverdale School in Gheen.
0:09:09.5 CJ: That's where I taught school.
0:09:12.5 S1: G-H-E-E-N. Gheen, Minnesota. Oh they had a zipcode on it.
0:09:14.4 CJ: Yeah, well. I don't know... I think I just put it in that envelope, I don't think that had anything to do with it.
0:09:26.7 S1: Well, it was, cause here in the envelope says Capper's pattern, and this is what you sent for...
0:09:30.7 CJ: This is a butterfly pattern that... This one, I never did make. But I got it all ready and I never did get around to making it. My mother made it...
0:09:39.8 S1: Oh there's two different butterflies?
0:09:41.7 CJ: My mother made a butterfly pattern and I gave that top to the museum.
0:09:48.0 S1: Oh Laura Wheller pattern number 768. Home Sew Incorporated, exclusive sample. That's another envelope. That's your sample.
0:09:52.6 CJ: Yes.
0:09:53.9 S1: Oh, they're beautiful.
0:10:03.4 CJ: Which ones is it you want? Do you want...
0:10:03.8 S1: I just would really... I put everything back the way it was.
0:10:08.2 CJ: You want that one?
0:10:09.8 S1: I just really would like to make a tracing of this, just for me. If I had a copy machine I'd...
0:10:14.4 CJ: Well I don't have a copy machine.
0:10:15.9 S1: Hardly anybody does.
0:10:18.6 CJ: They've got one across the road but I don't think Peterson's been home lately. They've got one over at the mill, she said if anytime I want... That's... No that's...
0:10:26.3 S1: Yarn.
0:10:28.0 CJ: That is that one.
0:10:29.6 S1: Is this in the original envelope?
0:10:31.7 CJ: I don't know.
0:10:32.4 S1: Pathfinder Needle Craft Department New York City, one sample.
[overlapping conversation]
0:10:40.8 S1: Colonial. What does that say? Colonial Fan?
0:10:46.7 CJ: Colonial Fan, yeah. And then I just cut out these ones. You know 'cause if you can quilt you can make your own patterns too.
0:10:47.6 S1: Yeah, you can and I can, but you know, it's surprising how many people can't.
0:10:57.6 CJ: Oh I know.
0:10:58.3 S1: Here's a scrap-bag quilt, you just got the clippings. And there's a nine-patch, that's kinda interesting.
0:11:06.8 CJ: Yeah, yeah.
0:11:08.7 S1: I just finished a nine-patch variation. Here's your pattern; you made it on sandpaper.
0:11:13.8 CJ: Yeah. And here's another.
0:11:14.1 S1: Oh that one, I like that one.
0:11:20.3 CJ: I don't care about this. Then I seen another Maple Leaf one, but that one is more pointed and I like my Maple Leaf better than any I've ever seen.
0:11:31.6 S1: Grandmothers Fan quilt.
0:11:33.3 CJ: Here's another butterfly one.
0:11:35.8 S1: Needlecraft Company, Augusta Maine. This is just beautiful. Plain colored blocks and colored fan blocks. Okay.
0:11:44.4 CJ: I made that one and sold it to a lady in Brainerd, she's dead now. I don't know whatever she did with it.
0:11:48.8 S1: The fan quilt?
0:11:48.9 CJ: Yeah.
0:11:50.4 S1: Oh that's too bad. Is this where you got it? No that's a different fan. That's a curved fan.
0:11:58.6 CJ: Yeah.
0:12:00.6 S1: From the Farmer.
0:12:01.4 CJ: Probably the Farmer. I mean whenever we used to... We used to make that Farmer magazine. And this is a book that we used to get Mountain Mist showing all the different patterns.
0:12:10.4 S1: Oh yeah. I sent to Mountain Mist for a copy.
0:12:15.9 CJ: Oh here's that... Wait a minute I've got one that's a real...
0:12:17.5 S1: And they sent me a folder that lists all their patterns.
[background conversation]
0:12:27.3 S1: Oh these are a real treasure. Just wonderful. Look at this pattern, I've never seen that. Melon Patch, quilt book number four, Farmer's Wife Magazine.
0:12:44.6 CJ: Wanna see something that's old.
0:12:53.5 S1: I love to see everything. What is... I'll save that here, I won't take it out.
0:13:02.1 CJ: No, you can take it out. Museum. That was in an old sewing machine upstairs.
0:13:13.7 S1: Oh 12th revised edition of The Ladies Art Company.
0:13:14.6 CJ: But wait a minute, wait a minute, there's a date on it here some place. Where did I see that date?
0:13:20.1 S1: I don't know, is it 1911.
0:13:22.2 CJ: Yeah 1911.
0:13:25.8 S1: The patterns, Oh look at the patterns.
0:13:27.8 CJ: I said, I'm gonna see if somebody can make a copy of all that before it completely falls apart.
0:13:34.6 S1: I will...
0:13:38.0 CJ: Would you wanna do it?
0:13:38.8 S1: I won't take it with me, but I will make a note and make sure that somebody knows you have it. Because I think somebody would like to have it.
0:13:48.0 CJ: I would love... If you wanna take it, I would trust you with it.
0:13:52.7 S1: No, I don't wanna be responsible for it, but it's such a treasure. When they get ready to do an exhibit or something, something like this could be very easy, and that's wonderful. It's a Ladies Art Company catalogue for patterns.
0:14:09.7 CJ: But the patterns are not named, they're just numbered, if you noticed in there, but I'd say some one of them could be identified too.
0:14:15.1 S1: Price of this book of diagrams is 25 cents. It's the 12th revised edition, The Ladies Art Company. Ah goodness, look at all these alphabets.
0:14:26.9 CJ: I know it. And I'm gonna give you some paper and you can copy your pattern there while I get lunch ready.
0:14:32.7 S1: Oh, I'd love that. Oh, that's wonderful. Do you mind if I look at these pattern.
0:14:42.3 CJ: Go ahead and look.
0:14:42.4 S1: I'll leave everything just the way it is. It's just fascinating to see them. Now, this Mountain Mist book, Lord I don't know what date this is. There's a lot of applique patterns in here. How to keep... This is funny, I've seen a couple of these bunny crib quilts on this Mountain Mist.
0:15:12.1 CJ: I made a lot of those, at different times.
0:15:17.1 S1: With the little rabbits running around?
0:15:18.8 CJ: Yeah. I used to sit and embroider those and it's... I don't know, a few years ago, I was making all kinds of quilts and selling them. And I don't know, I just kinda get off track to do different things at different times. I don't like to do the same thing all the time, I get kinda tired of...
0:15:34.6 S1: I don't know how people can sit and do 20 and 30 and 50 of something over and over for sale, but I guess if you have to you have to. This is a fun pattern, it's sawtooth violet. Or dogtooth violet. Dogtooth Violet. I've never seen that.
0:15:55.0 CJ: Here now, can you use something like this? Here.
0:15:58.8 S1: Yes.
0:16:00.1 CJ: It's cardboard, and then you can make your own...
0:16:01.8 S1: Well and I've got a tablet with me too if I can trace through.
0:16:05.0 CJ: Yeah. It's this one. Well here... Well wait a minute, I might have you grease some onion paper so you can see through it. But wait a minute, where were those patterns, they were already cut out in here?
0:16:05.0 S1: Yeah, so the templates are right in there.
0:16:17.0 CJ: But I wonder how good they are.
0:16:20.1 S1: Guard this, well guard all of these. 'Cause they are treasures. They're just wonderful. These are history, you know that.
0:16:29.2 CJ: I know it. [chuckle]
0:16:32.9 S1: I wonder where Ryan Park, Wyoming is?
0:16:34.7 CJ: My sister and her husband were there during the war, he hauled the Italian prisoners to war and my sister taught school there. Ryan Park is south of Rawlins. It's right down in the corner of Ryan Park, or of Wyoming. What's the name of those mountains that are there?
0:16:51.2 S1: Bighorns or...
0:16:53.9 CJ: No, and I was gonna say Smoky Hills. That isn't it.
0:16:56.7 S1: Rocky mountains?
0:17:00.5 CJ: Her baby, her oldest son was born out there and she ordered that pattern and then I made that quilt for her, it had those bunnies on it. She ordered the pattern and then she sent it to me and then I made it for her. Here...
0:17:16.7 S1: Here's a goat, or a cow.
0:17:17.6 CJ: No that was a bunny I think.
0:17:20.5 S1: No that's not a bunny.
0:17:23.1 CJ: Was this a bunny? Oh these are different ones.
0:17:23.7 S1: Oh that one is cute.
0:17:27.5 CJ: Yeah, but the bunny one was... This one I made for my son.
0:17:31.8 S1: Oh the embroidered.
0:17:33.1 CJ: Yes and I did...
0:17:34.4 S1: Have these already been transferred? I think you could transfer them again.
0:17:34.5 CJ: Yes. I kept them. But anyway, then I gave it to his... When his first boy was born, and I don't know if Diana kept that quilt or not, but anyway, I gave it. Oh here I think you can...
0:17:47.9 S1: Yeah, I can do that fine.
0:17:50.5 CJ: And then you'll have to have onion paper to trace this little one because... I don't know if I... I have some scotch tape on that.
0:18:00.8 S1: These are just... If you hear me going ecstatic, she's got stacks of patterns here. Some of them purchased some of them not. Here's a child's applique quilt with a bunny. Is that the one?
0:18:15.7 CJ: Now that's the one, that's the one we made for my sister.
0:18:21.8 S1: Oh, isn't that darling?
0:18:21.9 CJ: Yeah.
0:18:23.6 S1: Oh Clara that is so cute. I love rabbits. Oh, and it's got little chickens on it too. Maybe that's a different quilt. Well they've got chickens and bunnies on the quilt together in the picture.
0:18:40.3 CJ: Yeah. I think we used the chickens and the bunnies if I remember right. Okay, now you can... You'll have to trace this to see how to put it. Here's your onion paper.
0:18:52.9 S1: Right back where it was.
0:18:54.8 CJ: And then these others... The cardboard ones you can trace on them and you'll have them. There you go.
0:19:00.8 S1: I'll do that. I've got pen.
0:19:02.8 CJ: Yeah pen or pencil. Pencil is for tracing.
0:19:04.7 S1: Well I think I'll turn this off for a minute and see what, while I'm tracing the pattern. Is there anything else now that we haven't talked about, that when you read through that and it reminds you of something, just say so. We haven't talked about how many stitches per inch.
0:19:27.3 CJ: Well, like I said, I'm not the best quilter in the world. And then as you can see about four or five stitches. And I said, some of these people get about 10 or 12. We had some lady up from the cities one time that gave a program and she was showing variations of the log cabins. How about just, she had 16 stitches to the inch.
0:19:48.4 S1: Oh, but yeah.
0:19:49.5 CJ: I wouldn't say, but it seemed like... Why were quilts made? I think mostly well, because we needed them at that time, you know. And now I think I just do it because it's fun to make them.
0:20:06.4 S1: Yeah. I find that I do it more for the making...
0:20:10.0 CJ: Yeah.
0:20:10.1 S1: ..than I do because I need a blanket. It's the making them, rather than...
0:20:15.6 CJ: Here this now what groups made quilts? I think we did it around here just because we, and when we had the resort over here, we used to have to have... We had housekeeping cabins. And we just made plain quilts in order to have on them 'cause we furnished the bedding and the...
0:20:30.6 S1: You owned housekeeping cabins?
0:20:32.8 CJ: Yeah, my dad had a resort over on the lake over here when we first moved up here.
0:20:36.5 S1: Oh.
0:20:37.2 CJ: And like I said, a lot of those quilts were, probably got 10 yards of material and cut it in half and sewed it up and just tied quilts. We just had a... In the summertime, they didn't need much of a quilt but we still furnished all the bedding for the sheets and the pillowcases and the quilts.
0:20:54.4 S1: Did you ever quilt with a quilt group, like a church group or a neighborhood group or anything? Not.
0:21:01.2 CJ: The only time was, I said that time when those girls, when we made that quilt at school and...
0:21:06.3 S1: Your students and you?
0:21:09.4 CJ: Yeah. That was the only time for that. And signing quilts. I said, that's something that I didn't do until just recently. And I know that's something that's very very important.
0:21:24.5 S1: Well, it's nice. Even if they're not in a show or anything.
0:21:27.1 CJ: Yeah.
0:21:27.3 S1: Just for your own family and dating.
0:21:31.2 CJ: Yeah.
0:21:33.0 S1: Well I find this pattern collection really really exciting. I'm gonna bring my handy little copying machine up here one of these days. I love these pieced alphabets. Oh, I think they're fascinating.
0:21:53.0 CJ: Well, I said I'd like to get that whole book made over, you know?
0:21:56.8 S1: Yeah.
0:21:57.0 CJ: Before it completely falls apart.
0:21:58.8 S1: It is kind of falling apart.
0:22:00.7 CJ: I ironed it out. It was just, it had been rolled up of all things. And I got it straightened out. That's why I put it in that plastic.
0:22:07.2 S1: It's been torn right across the back there too. So these part...
0:22:09.8 CJ: And there's places where some pieces are even missing, but there's enough there so that you can... Well, I think we've covered this pretty well.
0:22:19.4 S1: I think so. There's a lot more stuff that I've learned that I thought was interesting. That isn't really on so much according to their thing.
0:22:34.1 CJ: Do you have stories about quilt making or washing quilts? Well I have just, like I said, washed them right in the washing machine.
0:22:41.5 S1: On gentle? Or?
0:22:43.9 CJ: Well, I don't have an automatic, I still use the old conventional and that way you can control it pretty good, you know, and then hang them out to dry.
0:22:51.7 S1: You hang yours out to dry.
0:22:53.6 CJ: Hang 'em outside. And do you have any stories about unusual uses of quilts? Well, I don't hang mine over the place. Some people have these split level houses or stairways where they can hang them. I don't even hardly have room to hang any wall hangings. [laughter] I've got a big house, but, well.
0:23:10.8 S1: Well you've got a lot of windows.
0:23:12.5 CJ: Yeah. I've got...
0:23:14.4 S1: I like that. I like that you have a lot of windows.
0:23:18.0 CJ: So the reason I keep the drapes closed, that's when I have TV on I like it shows up better. I could open up this one, I guess, over here too.
0:23:27.5 S1: Well, I've got that junk there on your counter.
0:23:27.8 CJ: It's okay. Don't have to, well I think we've covered it pretty well.
0:23:31.7 S1: I think so.
0:23:32.7 CJ: Unless there's anything else you want, but I'm so glad we found that stuff. So I knew which quilts I...
0:23:37.0 S1: Which one. Well I can look it up.
0:23:40.2 CJ: Well, see that's...
0:23:41.8 S1: And they have the pictures. Where did we put those things in?
0:23:45.2 CJ: I think they're in there. That's the one, see, I had duplicate copies made of those.
0:23:51.4 S1: I'm leaving that because this is where this one was.
0:23:54.7 CJ: Yeah. So then I found out that I had Grandmother's Flower Garden there and Joseph's Coat.
0:24:01.2 S1: So they're both beautiful. Both just beautiful. I love this little Hexagon Bouquet. I'm trying to write this.
0:24:16.2 CJ: Well, maybe... Give you a different pencil. It's gonna be a little hard to read that one. I got more pencils here.
0:24:23.7 S1: No, I can read just fine. This is a good pencil.
0:24:40.0 CJ: I know it is...
[pause]
0:24:43.1 S1: Three yards of green. My goodness. Well, I guess.
0:24:44.2 CJ: Well, there probably was some left over.
0:24:47.5 S1: Of course by the time you cut that border.
0:24:51.3 CJ: Yeah. That border. And then there's lots of pieces. Well, I always, when I buy material for the back, I always buy seven yards. It'll probably take six yards, but then you're sure that you have enough.
0:25:02.4 S1: I do too.
0:25:03.4 CJ: And then...
0:25:04.0 S1: Or at least another half.
0:25:05.6 CJ: Yeah. You can always use it for something else. And I don't know how much muslin...
0:25:10.5 S1: And I've got a few where they weren't quite wide enough, two widths weren't quite wide enough where I had to make my widths go the other way. You know?
0:25:23.8 CJ: Yeah.
0:25:23.9 S1: Where two 44s wouldn't make the back.
0:25:26.1 CJ: Yeah. Well, now that last one that I made there that just barely made it. I shouldn't have probably... Might've had about an eighth of an inch less on each one of those foot locks. It would've come out a little bit better, but I said that.
0:25:38.9 S1: You didn't know.
0:25:39.6 CJ: When I turned in the edges on that one side there, I kinda made some of those points a little, see the ends on that Tumbler one is straight, but on the sides it's pointed.
0:25:51.5 S1: Yeah.
0:25:51.8 CJ: You know?
0:25:52.3 S1: Yeah.
0:25:52.6 CJ: And there was a few places there where for some reason it hardly reached there. Well I'm so glad I found this, then I know. You know too, that was the ones that...
0:26:05.6 S1: Yeah.
0:26:07.4 CJ: But I had to pull it in on some of these a little bit more than I should have in order to make it reach 'cause... Something else that I learned at the last time too, when I would use 45 inch material, if you're gonna piece it down the middle. Do you cut your selvedge off?
0:26:27.8 S1: I do.
0:26:28.4 CJ: I didn't on that one. And the one...
0:26:31.5 S1: 'Cause it shrinks.
0:26:32.8 CJ: Because that one gal told me about it and I said, "Well, that was something I didn't know."
0:26:36.3 S1: I do, because I was always taught in school that the selvedge will shrink more.
0:26:42.6 CJ: Yeah. Well, that was, for some reason, nobody'd ever told me.
0:26:45.1 S1: Well.
0:26:45.1 CJ: And when you don't know, you don't know.
0:26:47.1 S1: When you don't know, you don't know is right. But you sure... Now here I'm putting... There's... I got these, oh these pattern pieces are in this little brown envelope. I'd be real surprised if somebody doesn't want to follow up on these pattern things that you've got.
0:27:04.2 CJ: Now this is our Pinetree Patchworkers newsletter that we get about every three months. This is all of our members. Yeah. That's one.
0:27:12.8 S1: Oh, this one, oh, goes back to this one. There from Comfort. These are cute.
0:27:22.3 CJ: See, this has got all of our member addresses and then these are...
0:27:26.2 S1: Now, there's Alma Esser.
0:27:28.4 CJ: Well, she probably said... But I just can't place her.
0:27:30.5 S1: She's a real fine-boned blonde lady, gray. But I think she was probably blond. Her husband owned a liquor store.
0:27:37.9 CJ: Well, I've heard of that Esser liquor store.
0:27:39.5 S1: Mel Esser...
0:27:39.8 CJ: And she probably comes, but I just...
0:27:41.7 S1: She drives a pale blue Cadillac and they go to Florida every...
0:27:47.0 CJ: Well, I'm gonna have to find out about her.
0:27:48.8 S1: But he hasn't been too well.
0:27:51.2 CJ: Now, when did you interview her?
0:27:53.0 S1: September 23rd.
0:27:55.5 CJ: Because when I called Marsha Stevens, she said... And then when they had the meeting the next Monday and they asked if there was anybody there that was being interviewed. Apparently she wasn't at that meeting. And I wasn't there that night either.
0:28:05.8 S1: Yeah. But Vivian Smithburg was...
0:28:08.2 CJ: Yeah.
0:28:08.8 S1: But see, there's probably other ladies in this thing that I don't...
0:28:14.4 CJ: Well.
0:28:14.8 S1: That I haven't reached.
0:28:15.1 CJ: How many quilts did you say that on that record that you have there? Seventy-some quilts?
0:28:20.0 S1: That was the highest number that I had copied down there. There were probably more.
0:28:23.8 CJ: But see then there was quite a few quilts that they documented from the museum that day.
0:28:29.0 S1: And see we can't do anything about those, about interviewing or stuff.
0:28:33.7 CJ: Well.
0:28:34.0 S1: Except with the information that they probably, you see now that I get... Yeah, I've got that.
0:28:44.8 CJ: Let me give you an envelope or something.
0:28:47.5 S1: Oh, I can just stick 'em in this folder.
0:28:50.3 CJ: Okay.
0:28:50.7 S1: Thank you so much, honey.
0:28:51.7 CJ: Oh, you're welcome.
0:28:52.7 S1: I really, really do appreciate that.
0:28:55.5 CJ: And let's see...
0:28:57.0 S1: If I can get that put together as neatly as you did so that there's little diamonds left in here. Is that well, as long as I remember that. Oh, there's a... Okay.
0:29:08.5 CJ: Well, I suppose.
0:29:09.2 S1: Yeah.
0:29:09.6 CJ: You see this is appliqued on here, there.
0:29:11.4 S1: I see, there's a little triangle in the middle and these... But see, you've got them fit so nicely.
0:29:16.9 CJ: Well, here, this one isn't quite as square across the way as it should be.
0:29:19.2 S1: Well, you know what I mean?
0:29:20.8 CJ: Well. I said those of us at quilting, we're the ones that are particular, but you look at that stuff... Of course, some of this material doesn't always fold just right, either. And like you say, polyester's a rascal, that won't fold where cotton does.
0:29:34.7 S1: The cotton does. But I was demonstrating some quilting the other day and I'm not that great at quilting either but they needed somebody to set it up.
0:29:40.7 CJ: Something else our quilt club does, at Christmas time, we all make placemats and we donate them to the hospital and when they take out their Meals on Wheels. I got one of mine done.
0:29:52.1 S1: Oh, that one's pretty.
0:29:53.2 CJ: Yeah.
0:29:53.5 S1: Oh, that's a pretty plaid isn't that.
0:29:55.5 CJ: They can be Christmas ones or they can be anything. Sometimes people have quilt blocks left over, they make placemats out of them.
0:30:01.3 S1: What did you use in those?
0:30:02.5 CJ: Oh, I don't know, some kind of batting. Anyway, I don't know what it was.
0:30:06.0 S1: What do you use in the middle of your pot holders?
0:30:08.8 CJ: You don't use polyester 'cause the heat goes through.
0:30:10.9 S1: Right. That's why I asked.
0:30:11.6 CJ: The best old thing is an old mattress pad, if you got one.
0:30:15.0 S1: Yeah.
0:30:15.1 CJ: Something that I wanna make and I... And you can see that I'm just... This is the way I work.
0:30:20.1 S1: Oh.
0:30:21.0 CJ: I wanna make a... I taught school and I wanna make one with schoolhouses on it.
0:30:25.4 S1: Oh, yeah.
0:30:26.1 CJ: So I've been getting my stuff together for all of the schoolhouses. I don't know when I'm gonna get that at, but...
0:30:33.0 S1: Oh yeah. I've this too, but... Oh, I've got that book. That was in fact I think this is the one I made my first quilt out of.
0:30:45.9 CJ: Anyway. I've just been kind of getting things put together.
0:30:47.7 S1: The very first quilt I made.
0:30:49.9 CJ: Here's another house one, houses every...
0:30:50.4 S1: Yes. Oh that's darling. That's real cute. There's another one.
0:30:53.8 CJ: And here...
0:30:54.4 S1: And I have been trying to make all different kinds of...
0:31:00.0 CJ: Well I haven't done any work on it. I just was getting my stuff together. Then I saw one end up in a quilting book where the houses kind of went up and down, kind of a hill.
0:31:07.7 S1: That's a nice one there.
0:31:09.0 CJ: Yeah.
0:31:09.1 S1: I made this only all my flowers were the same. Well, no, they weren't all the same. They were just a few colors.
0:31:14.1 CJ: Yeah. That's the one I'm working on over there now.
0:31:17.0 S1: But this is the very first quilt I made.
0:31:19.2 CJ: Oh my first one was my double wedding ring.
[laughter]
0:31:21.3 CJ: Outside of that...
0:31:22.6 S1: I made just about every mistake.
0:31:24.3 CJ: The other one was a Dresden Plate, the one we made for school.
0:31:26.4 S1: This book came out a long, long time ago.
0:31:28.6 CJ: Yeah. That's an old, old book. And then...
0:31:30.4 S1: But it's a really good book.
0:31:32.2 CJ: Yeah. A few weeks ago...
0:31:34.4 S1: Yeah. Copyright 1984, '71, '73, '74, '64, '70.
0:31:38.6 CJ: September 9th, I went down to St. Cloud to Minnesota Fabrics and they had another one of these holiday craft showings. Last year, I will show you the placemats that I made last year that were, she showed us. Where are they?
0:31:54.2 S1: Did you make them for the Meals on Wheels, you mean.
0:31:57.1 CJ: This is one.
0:31:58.8 S1: Oh that's cute.
0:32:00.0 CJ: It has a Christmas tree there. And then the napkin is the trunk of the tree, that's one. And the other one, where was the other one... Oh, and this apple one.
0:32:10.4 S1: Oh, that's cute too.
0:32:11.4 CJ: So I made one of these, we were each supposed to make two. So that was the two that I made last year and then I made some for gifts too, but I don't...
0:32:18.2 S1: Oh, that's cute. Did... Well, was that a booklet you're selling?
0:32:23.2 CJ: Yeah. These were the... No, these were the books that they gave us that day. This year, we were down and this was a...
0:32:29.5 S1: Now, who gave them to you?
0:32:30.8 CJ: Minnesota Fabrics. They had a... Oh, they've got a... I wonder if I've still got that list of... Just a minute, I'm gonna go out the kitchen. They were gonna show them all over the places where they've got places where they're having...
0:32:42.6 S1: Did you just go to this?
0:32:43.7 CJ: It's September 9th for this year.
0:32:44.6 S1: Yeah.
0:32:44.8 CJ: Down in St. Cloud. But, just a minute. I think...
0:32:48.8 S1: Well, yeah, they probably had them in the Twin Cities, too.
0:32:51.0 CJ: No, they had them all over the cities.
0:32:52.3 S1: And I just haven't gotten to any of them.
0:32:55.5 CJ: Just a minute. I think I might have that slip in my...
[pause]
0:33:26.5 CJ: Glad I didn't throw it away. You might still be able to go to those. They're running through November.
0:33:38.7 S1: Well, let's see.
0:33:38.9 CJ: Rochester. Stillwater, October 5th.
0:33:46.8 S1: Well, that's Southview and Maplewood October 28th. That's closest to me.
0:33:48.7 CJ: Okay I thought that was Stillwater.
0:33:54.9 S1: Rochester. Oh yeah. They've still got some, Crystal, Burnhaven.
0:33:57.3 CJ: She was just fantastic. I think I...
0:34:00.9 S1: Coon Rapids, Roseville October 21st.
0:34:08.7 S1: Well that's really interesting.
0:34:11.6 CJ: Put those dates down then you can...
0:34:14.2 S1: Put it right here on this. Put it on my folder.
[background conversation]
0:34:27.4 S1: Well, they'll advertise them too. I know.
0:34:32.1 CJ: Yeah.
0:34:46.7 CJ: I've taken quilts to the fair and won prizes on them. I didn't take any this year 'cause I didn't have any new ones to take.
0:34:51.0 S1: To the Minnesota Fair?
0:34:53.8 CJ: No to the County fair.
0:34:56.1 S1: Okay. This is Crow Wing?
0:35:00.2 CJ: This is Crow Wing County.
0:35:02.0 S1: Crow Wing County. Well, I just can't tell you enough how much I appreciate this, doing this for us. And this...
0:35:14.5 CJ: I couldn't figure out why I was the chosen one and everybody... I was telling them, they said, because you've been quilting a lot. These are some articles that have been in the paper.
0:35:20.3 S1: Yes. You've been quilting a long time and a lot.
0:35:22.3 CJ: These are some things that were in the Brainerd paper about some woman up at, what is her name? Mardel Borden from Crosby. Crosby has quite a quilt club.
0:35:33.6 S1: I've heard of that, but I haven't.
0:35:36.3 CJ: And then here's, here's one of our Pinetree Patchworkers ones. It's an article on them. This was Mardel Borden. This was Diane Cook. She was our president. She was the giggliest thing you ever saw your life. And this is, who is this gal?
0:35:56.1 S1: I don't know.
0:35:57.8 CJ: Ooh I can't remember who she is.
0:35:58.6 S1: Leach.
0:35:58.9 CJ: Leach, yeah.
0:36:00.0 S1: Carol Kristopherson. Dawn Leach.
0:36:04.2 CJ: Dawn Leach. That's her name, yeah. Because we have a show and tell every time and I tell you that's probably the most fun of all.
0:36:12.6 S1: Even our little group we do that. Sometimes...
0:36:19.7 CJ: There's Noella Rousch.
0:36:20.4 S1: Do you just meet once a month in the big group?
0:36:21.9 CJ: Yeah.
0:36:23.3 S1: This is a... This is a charming little folder, too. It must be from a batting.
0:36:27.4 CJ: Well, it must be from one of those Mountain Mist ones isn't it?
0:36:33.8 S1: It says Rogers Quality Batting. Lockport Cotton Batting Company.
0:36:33.9 CJ: Anything that has quilts in it, I saved. [laughter]
0:36:36.9 S1: You know, that was something that was interesting too. I saved quilt patterns before I ever began to quilt, I used to save the pictures.
0:36:47.7 CJ: Well, I do too. I'm always saving stuff like that. Anything that has to do with quilts it seems like.
0:36:55.8 S1: Well, these are fascinating. I just think that's...
0:37:00.7 CJ: Here was something I tore out of a magazine. It didn't interest me especially, it might you. This is something that was in a Country Home Magazine.
0:37:09.6 S1: Yes I've got that, I've saved that too.
0:37:12.6 CJ: I thought that was rather interesting.
0:37:14.8 S1: I've got that exact article saved. Yes. I think we, maybe it's not just you...
0:37:19.4 CJ: This is the one that came yesterday. This Quilting Today.
0:37:22.7 S1: Yes, I got that yesterday too. I think there's... We have a lot of things going on in common.
0:37:29.0 CJ: Yeah.
0:37:30.7 S1: See, I don't think it's just quilting either. It's, we seem to like...
0:37:32.9 CJ: Cooking and everything. This one intrigued me. I said, I looked at these and I think, Oh if I could only wave a wand. So. And then this was something and I wish I'd have had 50 years ago. I haven't got a thing in it. Have you seen that, keeping record of all your quilts?
0:37:45.8 S1: No. Where did you get that?
0:37:47.8 CJ: One night when we... Well something else we have, we have a table. If you've got quilt patterns or material, you don't want you put on a table, put your name on it, put your price on it. If somebody wants to buy it, you can buy it. And I think I got that for quarter.
0:38:01.7 S1: There's one on this order that they sell out of that American AQS catalog.
0:38:07.1 CJ: Well, maybe that...
0:38:08.0 S1: It's called a Quilter's journal, but it it's not this one. This is Rodale. That's one of those printing companies. This is a nice one. And more people should do this.
0:38:16.7 CJ: I know it. See here's an advertisement. I just put that in there because that's... If somebody wants to make a quilt like that.
0:38:24.6 S1: You could do this.
0:38:26.9 CJ: Well I'm gonna have to start doing that anyway.
0:38:29.6 S1: Well, you could do it even with the ones you've already got. Take a good picture.
0:38:34.1 CJ: Here was... This was another, Lorraine Grabble was one that brought some quilts that time. And then she must have asked me about a quilt book and I, she thought I had it, but I don't have it.
0:38:46.0 S1: I think I've got her on this list.
0:38:51.6 CJ: She's from...
0:38:53.4 S1: Deerwood or Jenkins?
0:38:54.4 CJ: Jenkins. Yeah.
0:38:58.1 S1: But she was interested. Her subject would've been Bertha Vandermeer, deceased. Lorraine Grabble is the owner.
0:39:05.2 CJ: She was a... I interviewed...
0:39:05.9 S1: Has she been quilting for a long time?
0:39:06.8 CJ: I don't know. She was one that came that day, see. And then afterwards she said, when she did that, she wrote this to my son and daughter-in-law and wanted to know. She said, I wish to know what the name of the quilt book that carries the pictures of unusual quilts and also publishers. Well, I must have just talked about some books and said you can get them at the library. Because our library's got a whole shelf of library books, but I don't know...
0:39:27.6 S1: Your Public library or...
0:39:28.3 CJ: Public one. A lot of the books have been...
0:39:29.8 S1: But you've got a Quilters library too don't you in Brainerd?
0:39:30.0 CJ: Yeah. They've got a lot of books in there.
0:39:35.3 S1: Well, I guess I'll take my little, hold up my act and quietly slip away over to Genola and see if they'll take my $5 gift certificate.
0:39:46.6 CJ: Well I won't a...
[overlapping conversation]
0:39:50.6 CJ: Gift certificate at the... When that House of Fabric store opened up. But I didn't buy any quilting material that day. I bought some Christmas presents and I bought a kit to make a pillow. And what else did I buy that day? I can't remember anymore now.
0:40:00.2 S1: I'm looking for some little silver buttons too.
0:40:05.7 CJ: You're looking for silver buttons?
0:40:07.5 S1: Well, I want some to put on a...
0:40:12.1 CJ: Just a minute, just a minute, maybe I...
0:40:12.5 S1: No, no, no, I'm not begging silver buttons.
0:40:14.0 CJ: Wait a minute though. Just a minute though.
0:40:14.3 S1: I saw some in some fabric shop and of course now I can't remember which fabric shop it was that I saw them in.
0:40:26.2 CJ: Don't ask me here...
0:40:27.3 S1: You've got a lot of stuff.
0:40:29.0 CJ: I've got too much stuff. I said, I can't find it half the time.
0:40:30.0 S1: At the quilt show the other day they were selling Viking Husqvarna machines and boy have they got the fancy ones now.
0:40:35.6 CJ: Oh and the price.
0:40:38.1 S1: I didn't look at the price because I wasn't looking to... I got a new sewing machine a couple of years ago.
0:40:45.9 CJ: Well I've had this one. Well this is my second one. The first one I got, I liked it. Then I had a dark cabinet, then I traded it in for this light cabinet 'cause I wanted it to match my furniture. And then while he was here, he talked to me into buying this one that doesn't... doesn't need oiling. I wish I'd have kept my other one.
0:41:03.1 S1: Well, I don't know what you're looking for.
0:41:03.8 CJ: I'm looking for silver buttons, I've got a whole bunch of them here some place.
0:41:07.3 S1: Oh I just need a couple.
0:41:09.1 CJ: Well you can have them.
0:41:11.4 S1: I saw these lovely T-shirts they were like $40 the other day and the only thing different about them was that they had silver buttons. They were kind of... They were regular Tshirts. Oh look at all those cute little...
0:41:25.9 CJ: Tea cans.
0:41:27.7 S1: I save tea cans too.
0:41:27.9 CJ: I tried to put the color on them but I can't remember which is which. There.
0:41:32.5 S1: Silver buttons. Oh wow.
0:41:36.2 CJ: Help yourself, help yourself. What do you want?
0:41:40.1 S1: Little ones.
0:41:41.0 CJ: Little ones?
0:41:41.4 S1: Little ones that would go through the thing of a t-shirt.
0:41:46.6 CJ: There aren't any little ones.
[background conversation]
S1: ...this size....I wonder what those came off of. Aren't those pretty?
CJ: You can have them.
S1: Well, if you don't mind I'll take four of these. You know what, the shirt that I'm buying 'em for is a pale kind of gray-blue. It's a washed-out blue.
CJ: You sure you don't want more of them? You're sure that they're good ones, now. Take some extra ones if you want. Here's some little ones if you can't use that kind.
S1:..these are so pretty.
CJ: .. here one, two, three, four..Take those if you want them.
S1: I don't want to take your buttons....these are so pretty.
CJ: When you have one or two, they're not good for anything. Take your other ones, then, too.
S1: Oh goodness.Non,no, no. I didn't come here to steal your buttons.
[more overlapping conversation]
S1: I think maybe these are two different colors.
CJ: Take them over in the light and take a good look.
S1: See what I mean?
CJ: These I had..what did I have these on?
S1: These are two different colors. I'll just take these four....
CJ: ..five, six. Well, here, here's another one of those. How many have you got of those?
S1: Seven. I got plenty; oh that's way more....
[more overlappping]
CJ: Lots of times when you want...you find three alike and you need four. What good is that one or two.
S1: You know, I've tried to start tying mine together when I take them off something.
CJ: People used to give me a lot of stuff 'cause... I don't make rugs, but I sell rag rugs, rags for rugs, you know, and have them woven.
S1: Yeah, I noticed your sign out front. You don't make the rag rugs.
CJ: No I don't make them, but I just have...
S1: Well thank you, Clara. This is very generous.
CJ: Well I've got to show you something else. Did you see my raindeer in the corner?
S1: Yes.
CJ: I've made 185 of those rascals.This year I don't have any orders for any.
S1: You've made 185?
CJ: I started about seven or eight years ago.One year I made about thirty-...
S1: What do you stiffen the horns with?
CJ: You stuff them. Stuff 'em with polyester fiberfill. Marcia Stevens saves me all that stuff that she cuts off when she does her...and you stuff them just as hard as you can, and the same with the legs.
S1: Oh. Well they're cute. They are really cute.
CJ: What's wrong with the deer, though. Tell me what's wrong with the deer?
S1: I don't know.
CJ: His horns should be in front of his ears.
S1: Oh, I suppose...Well that one's kind of on top..
CJ: Well that one I keep. This one's for sale.
0:44:54.2 S1: They're cute. Well, I wish I had a place for a deer, 'cause they're really charming.
0:44:56.0 CJ: Hey don't forget your books. I didn't get a chance to look at this other book either.
0:45:03.1 S1: Well you look for a minute while I take this tape up and say thank you, thank you thank you very much again.
0:45:07.2 CJ: I wish you could stay all day, we'd have plenty to talk about I'm sure.
0:45:11.1 S1: I'm sure. I think somebody will be calling you about your patterns, because that pattern collection is wonderful. That's the kinda thing you just read about in books.
0:45:22.1 CJ: You what they should do, when they come is bring a copier.
0:45:24.9 S1: Yes we should bring a copy machine up and copy some of those, at least the covers and...
0:45:30.7 CJ: Well, the whole thing could be copied, and make another booklet is what it really should be.
0:45:33.6 S1: Right, that's a good idea.
CJ: These are the Arkansas...
Written by Clara Jenkins (interviewee);Allene Helgeson (interviewer) (1993)
Minnesota Quilt Project digital archive. Minnesota Quilters, Inc. 253 State St. St. Paul, MN 55107
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