| With an estimated 130 completed quilts to her credit | | | | and what doesn't. There are plenty of books out there |
| (and counting), Trudy Schwader at age 75 has had a | | | | that tell you how much material, say for instance for a |
| rich lifetime of quilting experience. Conversations with | | | | log cabin. Simple ones like that will give you a good |
| Trudy to make a record of these experiences | | | | place to start. Those simple ones are the ones that I |
| resulted in a series of articles. What follows here is | | | | make now to use up my scraps.[Q: Speaking of |
| article Number II.[Question: You have a legendary fabric | | | | books, do you have a big collection or library, or how |
| collection - enough inventory for a small store! How did | | | | did you get your patterns that you use for your |
| you collect so much fabric?]Trudy: I had 8 kids and I | | | | quilts?]Trudy: No. Not a big library. Just a few books |
| sewed for them all the time - cotton dresses, shirts, | | | | that really have a lot of patterns in them. And then, like |
| whatever. When I sewed I always saved the material | | | | the log cabin - it's so easy now for me to put one |
| that was left, and I still have lots of those scraps | | | | together or to make variations. The way I make the |
| (laughs). In fact, I know I have a few scraps from | | | | log cabin, I learned from talking to another quilter. I had |
| material that my mother used when she made clothes | | | | gone to a mall to one of the fabric stores, and they |
| for us back when I was young. Unreal, but I really do | | | | have classes. They have people come in and tell |
| have some of those fabrics from the 30s and 40s.So | | | | about quilts and other types of sewing projects.[Q: So |
| when I started sewing a quilt, I would usually have | | | | you learned an easy way, a short-cut way to put |
| scraps to begin with. And then I would go into stores - | | | | together a classic like a log-cabin, by taking a |
| fabric places you know - and if I needed something | | | | class?]Trudy: It's a good idea for beginners to take a |
| special to go with the quilt I was making, then I would | | | | class, but this one wasn't a class actually. The speaker |
| buy it. Of course, while I was there I would see other | | | | was just showing us some quilts and talking about |
| materials, and as I say, some of these bolts of material | | | | how to do a few things. It was part of her |
| would jump out and say, "Buy me," and so I'd buy | | | | demonstration with some other items she was selling. |
| some of that cloth, too![Q: What happened to those | | | | It's like with any craft, knowing a few little tricks can |
| pieces that you bought on impulse? I mean, sometimes, | | | | save you a lot of time.[Q: Can you give an example of |
| you'd have fabrics for a long time that you'd never use | | | | a time-saving trick?]Trudy: Well. Most people might |
| and then all of the sudden it'd be just the right thing for | | | | already know about a tool called a rotary cutter, but it |
| a quilt? Or did it end up that those that jumped out and | | | | is probably the biggest single thing that made quilting so |
| said, "Buy me," never quite fit for any quilt you made | | | | much easier for me than using scissors. It's a cutter |
| later?]Trudy: Some. I do use a lot of them, but there's | | | | kind of like a pizza-cutting wheel. I can stack up fabric, |
| still a few that I've never used. I think this is not unusual | | | | line it up along the edge of a special ruler that belongs |
| for quilters. It takes some time and some 'mistakes' to | | | | with the rotary cutter, and get a perfectly straight cut |
| acquire a really good on-hand quilting fabric collection. | | | | every time without the effort of squeezing a scissors |
| You need lots of variety and color.[Q: What advice | | | | over and over to cut out all the little pieces of a |
| would you give a beginner? What are some things | | | | pattern.It's the best, and anyone today quilting without |
| that you know now that you wish you had known | | | | this tool is really making it hard on themselves. Go get |
| earlier in your quilting experience?]Trudy: For a | | | | a rotary cutter right now if you don't have one |
| beginner, the thing to do is to go to a book, find a | | | | already.Theresa Modine's studies of American folk art |
| simple pattern that you might like and the instructions | | | | and women's history includes an emphasis on quilting. |
| will tell you about how much material to get. And if you | | | | She is contributing author of The Quilt Box, your |
| ask them about it, most of the people in fabric stores | | | | resource for a world of quilting information. Addtional |
| will give you a lot of advice about what goes together | | | | articles by Theresa are found at First Class Fabric. |