Asheville, NC, December 9, 2020
The nonprofit Quilt Alliance launches its second season of Running Stitch, A QSOS Podcast, hosted by Janneken Smucker, Professor of History at West Chester University. The podcast explores quilt stories, revealing the inner thoughts, feelings, and motivations of contemporary quiltmakers by drawing from Quilters S.O.S. -- Save Our Stories (QSOS), the long-running grassroots oral history project created by the Quilt Alliance in 1999.
The QSOS collection includes over 1,200 interviews conducted from 1999 to 2017. The interviews are archived at the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries, and also at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. The Nunn Center recently digitized over 800 audio recordings on cassette tape that will allow users to listen to these interviews as they are added to the new QSOS website at www.QSOS.QuiltAlliance.org.
Quilts and quiltmaking serve as a lens to examine some of today's most pressing issues, including activism, public health, politics, race, and the economy. Running Stitch host Janneken Smucker digs into the QSOS archive to listen to excerpts from past interviews, and bring back interviewees to ask them about what they are working on and thinking about presently. Upcoming guests in the first half of Season Two include Ricky Tims, Merikay Waldvogel and Carolyn Crump. Season One featured Victoria Findlay Wolfe, Carolyn Mazloomi, Thomas Knauer, Melanie Testa, Jinny Beyer, panelists Meg Cox, Frances O'Roark Dowell, Chawne Kimber and Gwen Westerman.
Support for the podcast comes from the Robert and Ardis James Foundation and the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History. Additional support for our first episode of Season Two is provided by Ricky Tims, author of the chapter novel, Lizzy Albright and the Attic Window, co-written with Kat Bowser.
In episode one of Season Two (released today), Smucker talks to quiltmaking legend Ricky Tims about the role of creativity in his life. As a quiltmaker, musician, composer, co-host of The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims, and founder of Quilt Life magazine, Ricky embodies creativity. We’ll revisit his first interview for the QSOS project, recorded two decades ago in 2000, and continue the conversation with a new interview exploring the intersection of music and quilting, his perspective on the creative spirit.
"My head spins when I think about how long is has been since I did my original interview for QSOS. My journey has morphed over the years as well as my diversity as a quilt maker. I can still list the names of the quilters who were established prior to my entrance into this wonderful world. I was a new kid on the block. Now I’m the ’seasoned professional’ and can only hope that my example is an inspiration to others as they make their way into the wonderful world of quilting," says Tims.
Subscribe to Running Stitch at: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or Stitcher and find summaries and resources for each episode as they are released on the Running Stitch episode page here.
