Interview with Teri Henderson Tope

Karen Musgrave (KM): This is Karen Musgrave and I am doing a Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories interview with Teri Henderson Tope. Today's date is June 20, 2008. We are in Columbus, Ohio at the National Quilting Associations quilt show. It is now 9:26 in the morning. Teri, thank you so much for taking time to do this interview with me. Let's start by having you tell me about the quilt that you brought.

Teri Henderson Tope (THT): The quilt that I brought today is "Quilting Frenzy." It was originally designed for the Moda Challenge in 2004, which consisted of a collection of beige on beige prints. Well, I'm not a beige on beige print kind of gal, so I collected every bright Moda Fabric that I could come up with and the fabric on the back of this quilt actually inspired the front, which is kind of an interesting point. You see the pattern on the back has an incredible amount of tiny, tiny little sewing utensils. Well the idea behind this quilt, or the concept behind this quilt was the fact that as a quilter and with my family I will start a project and I will say, show them this is the little block, this is where the quilt is starting and I will walk in a day later, here five blocks in a row and a week later, here is half the quilt finished and by the time it is finished, I walk in and say look the quilt is done. They have seen it a hundred times and could care the less. Seriously, great mom, you know, great quilt, but I get on the phone and I call my quilting friends, they come over and they do the happy dance with me because the quilt is done and the binding is on and it looks great. It actually is a cartoon portrait of myself and my two dearest sewing friends, Joanne Purcell and Liz Canty dancing in my sewing room which is a cluttered crazy mess. It is just incredible fun quilt and I thought it was indicative of how I feel about quilting and my friends as far as my style and "Quilting Frenzy."

KM: This does reflect your style.

THT: Yes it does, one hundred percent. I am a hand appliqur, it is hand appliqud and hand quilted, the border around the outside is pieced, but I definitely like high contrast and if it is not fun I'm not going to do it, so it is kind of one of those. You won't find a fussy, silly, crazy, tiny antique looking things in my collection.

KM: Did you enter it in the Moda Challenge?

THT: Yes, locally. The way that challenge worked is that you entered it in your local shop and the winners from the local shops went on to a district, etc., etc. It placed somewhere, but wasn't the first prize winner, nor should it have been having up against some of what I saw in the collection were absolutely beautiful quilts. I love this quilt though and it is part of my trunk show that I take when I lecture and everybody smiles and has a good time with this. It does its job, and you know what quilters see themselves in this, so that, you know, that is where it goes.

KM: Where do you have it displayed? Do you display it? How do you use it?

THT: I actually display this at the top of the entryway in my house, so when people walk in my front door they know a quilter lives here. Periodically it comes down and more seasonal quilts go up, but nine times out of ten, this one makes me happy, I want to look at it. It hangs and it needs to hang, it needs to be out somewhere.

KM: What are your plans for the quilt?

THT: It is my collection. I have sold quilts in the past and plan to in the future. I understand that is a way of also preserving them, this one will stay in my collection. This one is near and dear to me. There are a few things that you get tied to and this is definitely one of them. My friends are on it, so I have to keep it. [laughs.]

KM: Tell me about your interest in quiltmaking.

THT: I started quilting twenty, about twenty-five years ago, it was, after our earlier unsuccessful pregnancy I was put on bed rest with my second pregnancy, and the last six weeks--I'm a hyper crazy person, this is in the '80's, '83 and you know we are young college graduates right out of school and no cable TV, nothing going on, I'm in a bedroom of a two bedroom apartment alone most of the time, Better Homes and Garden book and a box of chintz fabric samples from my mother-in-law's fabric store and I hand pieced a chintz Dresden Plate onto a bed sheet and that quilt took me a very long time to finish, but by the time I had an amazing beautiful daughter I had a top done. That was a start. I don't have quilters in my family. My mother taught us growing up, I grew up in southern Ohio, garment making for 4-H and I can tell you, having a mother as an advisor. Joyful jumper was not joyful. That zipper must have gone in nine times before. She probably will kill me for saying this, but nine times before it was perfect, but to be able to get rewards from that is to be able to go back to do my lecture for her group of friends and have them, you know, I am what I am because of the way she taught me. You learn right and then you break rules and you twist and change. She is now taking up quilting, so that is, I am able to share my craft with her. She doesn't call herself a quilter even though she has made a couple of quilts. I'm the quilter in the family.

KM: What does your family think of your quiltmaking?

THT: Its, it was a hobby that turned into a business. I was kicking and screaming to designing that first pattern by my friends. I was always taking commercial patterns and turning them into something of my own. Local quilt shop, The Glass Thimble here in Columbus, the owner, 'You've got to do this. You've got to do this. You've got to do this.' My husband is a graphic designer, I had no reason not to, we have, we are self-employed and have our own business so during downtime I was able to play on the computer and play with different things and came up with the first pattern. It has turned into a very nice little business for me, and I think that it is also along with that it has taken me all over the world. I went to Japan and taught quilting in Japan, have been all over the United States, and it has taught my children that if you are good at something look where you can take it. My oldest is a writer, middle one is into music and the youngest haven't got there yet. Anything they do they could take somewhere, so it kind of took off that feeling that people seem to think that they can't go farther, oh it is just a hobby. Well look where I have taken it. It is kind of an incredibly supportive family, incredibly proud of me. My mother shows up that the show tomorrow, ninety percent of the show floor will know that she has been there because she will just, this is my daughter's quilt, and I have been able to do some really special things for them quilt wise so that they are commemorated, and that is why I use my maiden name as my middle name, respect for my parents.

KM: Tell me about your involvement in NQA.

THT: Belong to a local chapter, the Quintessential Quilters in, I can't remember what year it was, '98 or '99 they had their show in Columbus, Ohio. My husband being a graphic designer we jumped on board to help with advertising and marketing. Incredible organization. Have helped me grow personally with meeting and making contacts in the quilting world. Because of that, National Quilting Association, I'm also on the Board of the Appliqu Society, they do predominately appliqu. It is my love, I piece because I have to. I used to say that my sewing machine only stitched straight lines, well I'm going kicking and screaming into the machine quilting just because of the time factor of getting things done, but as far as the National Quilting Association or quilting organization, you can sew for a very long time in your closet or in your bedroom, until you get out in that world I can't explain the difference of how it impacts everything that you do in your life with quilting. The teachers that you are able to take classes from and meet and organize and it just, you know, to do that, get involved with your guild.

KM: Describe your studio.

THT: We live in an older home in Worthington, Ohio. After years of sewing in an upsairs bedroom, I took over the formal living room and dining room. The dynamics of how we use our house, we are not a formal dining room and formal living room type of family and I had furniture in there that was never used or sat in so in the fourteen years we lived in the house, we ate in the dining room twice. The dining room is right off the kitchen, wonderful huge windows with natural lighting. I now can see my design wall from the kitchen, so I'm trying to play out a problem on a quilt I can hang it up on the wall and look at it throughout the day in different light, from far away and being on the first floor and being in that space I'm still connected to my family and it is not an off limits place where oh that is mom's room. My fondest quilting memories as I was going over the paperwork earlier was my twenty-five year old when she was young laying under my quilting frame and talking to me. It is kind of that, you can't see me so I can talk to you and I'm doing my stuff and we had such great conversations and she remembers that. They have always participated in what I'm doing, their input on what I'm doing and oh, don't use that color, you know, they are very much a part of what I do and they are very much a part of my studio with their artwork and their bits and pieces, inspired by everything. A neighbor walked into my house, a non-quilting neighbor, a new neighbor walked in and walked into my living room and I have eight foot wall of fabric and she looks up and says, oh do you sell fabric? No mine, it is all mine. [laughs.] Not sure if you can come back. [laughs.] It is a part of my life and it is right out there in front of you now, it is a part of my life.

KM: You quilt on a frame?

THT: I quilt on a frame, I also quilt on a hoop, it depends on the project. [laughs.] The bigger it is the frame is better, although I find that I'm using the hoop, a stationary hoop or floor hoop more and more because I can move it around the house and depending on what is going on and I have an incredible screened in porch so it is kind of nice these wonderful morning that we have been having getting outside and being able to do something in natural light again. The older we get, the eyesight.

KM: Give me a little more details about your studio.

THT: Oh my studio, okay, I slowly and eventually have moved all of the normal house furniture out of those two rooms. The hand me down dining room set, etc. have all ended up at the curb periodically. I have I think three sewing machines in there at this point, a wardrobe full of books, a design wall that is about twelve feet from cork or front is with flannel, it is, I have a high waist or high table in there for cutting board that is moveable so I can rearrange the room as need be. It is, as I said a part of the house, so it is something that the kids, the family, the children, everybody is all involved in there. I don't have any of the bookkeeping or computer in that room, that is my space. Comfortable chairs for my friends, a space for my friends to come over and sew, which is a plus. For the longest time they were coming to my house, it was a place we could easily spread out, the dining room table makes a good, it stayed. The dining room table stayed. A lot of fabric, a lot of threads, mess, recently about two weeks ago had an intervention with my friends, they decided that I was having an engagement party coming up for my daughter who is getting married next May, and they showed up at my house with baskets because they were going to clean my sewing room, and I was a bit miffed. It was like I would rather they dug through my underwear drawer than dig through my sewing room because this is an extension of me. I once told somebody in a lecture, she asked me, everything you make is beautiful, tell me the secret. I will show you what I want to show you. You don't get to see what is down tucked away in the bottom drawer and underneath. My friends found that and a lot more and they also found the five seam rippers. I couldn't find and the extra pairs of appliqu scissors that were tucked in the wrong places and the piles and piles of drawings of things that I, and they did organize me and I would recommend being better organized. We lived in the house like I said for fourteen years and there are fourteen years of accumulation and we all, or I think that as a quilter that I'm not using the same tools and I'm not using the same processes that I used before, but I've kept all of that. By the end of the day I had forgiven them, I have forgiven them for invading my space, although I had to check their bags before they left to make sure they didn't take off with any of my little treasures.

KM: How has the advances in technology influenced your work?

THT: My husband is a graphic designer and a web designer, the Internet has just, I don't know how we did it before this point, and in researching anything that you are trying to create be it the illustrations or the antique pattern or a picture of a macaw, anything that you want to come up to is available on the Internet, along with the availability to enter those contests, to download the information that you need, to get in contact with other quilters. I'm on the Board of the Appliqu Society. Their offices are in Squin, Washington. Without the Internet I would not be able to be participating in their discussions and their organization at all. The fact that I can send photos back and forth is amazing. I have friends in Japan. To be able to talk back and forth to my Japanese quilters and send them information back and forth, which takes so long with snail mail, etc. and design factors. Need to be able to scan in and change is a lot of what I do is, created on paper I actually design with pieces of paper and a pencil and a big eraser. Put it into the computer to refine, to define, to organize, to get things back into a shape that is workable. Not everything can be ten feet tall, so I have to. I have to stay within restraints to be able to do things. I don't know what I would do without my computer. Please let's keep the electricity on. [laughs.]

KM: Do you belong to any other quilt groups?

THT: I belong to Quintessential Quilters, which is our local guild; it is a chapter of the National Quilting Association. I also belong to the Westerville Quilters, which is, I live in Worthington and Westerville guild. I belong to the National Quilting Association, the American Quilters' Society, and Appliqu Society. I have been on the Board of the Appliqu Society for about seven years and appliqu is my love so I will, and I do publicity and PR for them and their shows. I also have a living room group of five ladies that I sew with and we are called the S & M Quilters. That stands for stitches and munch quilters, although maybe the process of making the quilts and the things we go through would be a little [laughs.], I'm not sure but that is, you know, they are five quilters and all five of them have totally different styles, none of them appliqu, none of them are published, none of them design their own patterns, nor do they wish to. We've got Civil War, we got reproductions, we've got piecers, we've got hand piecers, we all do something different that it is amazing how I can be stuck on a project and they can come and look at it with a totally different view, and so they have inspired me more than they know and when I recently won an award at a quilt show, the second person I called after my mother was my quilting group. They have to know. One of the group is in Hawaii and I called and left a message, because it was like, you know, we are definitely going to celebrate when this is over, and they do that, along with the other points of not good things happening. That group is my, we all started the guild on the exact same night. Got stuck together because we were all brand new to the guild about fifteen years ago, and we have been incredibly close, retreats, road trips, you name it. [laughs.]

KM: Whose works are you drawn to and why?

THT: I wouldn't say that it is a particular artist or more of a venue. I am drawn to Amish quilts. Amis quilts are pieced and it is not something that I do, but I think that it is the graphic, contemporary look of an Amish quilt, the strong contrast of color and workmanship. These ladies are taking something that is so utilitarian in their culture and creating something beautiful and taking pride in that, and also taking no--I'm searching for the word. They are taking their prizes, they are taking no acknowledgement that they have done it. It is put on a bed and it is used, that to me is just beautiful, absolutely beautiful. I have followed quilters, taken classes and followed quilters, such as Gabrielle Swain and I've taken classes from Nancy Crow, Pat Campbell. I'm trying to think. Oh shoot, I've lost it but I have taken a lot of classes and taken repetitive classes with some of these teachers just because of what they are able to offer. Do I want to emulate their style of quilt, no I think that I'm enough of an artist to know that I want to do my own stuff, which is why I'm designing my own stuff. It is like I don't want to do someone else's patterns.

KM: What advice would you offer someone starting out?

THT: Oh my goodness, take classes. Take as many classes as you can afford or handle. Join the guild, the show and tell, the commentary, the amount you learn just from sitting next to somebody is amazing. But also do what you love, if you hate to hand quilt, don't do it. There are so many processes out there that there is bound to be a fit at something you like. I was once working on a border to a quilt at a retreat and had a quilter walk up to me and say what are you doing. Well I had pink trees on it, and a pink moose. What are you doing? It kind of hurt my feelings a little bit and several months later I actually got a, or a year later the quilt was in our local show and she walked up to me and she goes those borders were the butt ugliest things I have ever seen, but that quilt is beautiful. Had I been more--had I paid attention to her I may not have finished that quilt. If I had let somebody say what I should be doing, I would have put my "Northern Lights" quilt or "Nuclear Winter" as my husband calls it, would have not been finished and so my advice to them obviously it is good to take criticism sometimes, but at other times be true to what you love. If you want to glue it down there, glue it down there, it is your quilt. [laughs.]

KM: Do you think of yourself more as an artist or a quiltmaker, or do you even make the distinction?

THT: I don't make the distinction. I define myself as a quilter. I have for a long time. People ask me what I do, I quilt. They look at you, professional setting sometimes, it is like my husband being a graphic designer, we are affiliated with photographers, with the art world, with designers, with illustrators and so in a business situation I can wear quilter clothing, I can wear something in and they see it as an art. But to walk into a school function, oh my mom quilts, and no I'm not somebody who is just sits at home, I'm not 90 and Amish, which nothing wrong with being Amish, but you know. I define myself as a quilter, if someone were to ask what I do, I quilt and I quilt because I love it. The fact that I am hopefully able to make a living doing it is definitely a plus, but the fact that I am able to do it and make some living is just amazing and I would encourage, get out of the closet, get out of that little bedroom and do what you can. I've always been the artsy crafty kid, I've always been the one who took things a little in the other direction. Kindergarten teacher, color the tree green and the trunk brown. Well my tree had orange leaves because it was fall and it had a white trunk because it was a River Birch. We are not boundary, I think I think that way, I should think as an artist and I look at quilts as an artist, but it is the process of putting the needle into the fabric that makes me happy. [laughs.] Makes me incredibly happy.

KM: What do you think is the biggest challenge confronting quiltmakers today?

THT: I would say the lack of knowledge out there what quilting is. Trying to do publicity for a show and getting people to realize if they walk through the show they would see the art. They would see the technique, they would see the ability. Getting people to realize that quilting isn't just a blanket on a bed. I forgot what the question was. [laughs.]

KM: Biggest challenge.

THT: Biggest challenge. For quilters is being taken seriously as a valid, how many people have we brought into Columbus, Ohio for this quilt show and getting the city to acknowledge that quilters are here has just been a very challenging, very challenging haul.

KM: Is it getting easier?

THT: Just the local paper a couple of weeks ago ran an ad, a very large ad on the Quilt Surface Designs Symposium. It is an incredible show with a very limited amount of space and limited amount of women that pay very high prices to be taught by the Nancy Crows and the Libby Lemans, in the art quilt world. We have brought thousands of traditional quilters to Columbus, Ohio, but to be able to get a full page spread, we have had a blurb, it is like you know, it is challenging, it is challenging to be taken seriously and to be, how to get past that. You look at any interior decorating magazine and they have got a quilt in the room. It is, we are there, we are in the museums, we are hanging in the galleries, and it isn't all art quilts, not that there is anything wrong with art quilts, but there are a lot more of the more traditional or more contemporary quilters out there. Hopefully some day with organizations like yours, we will get that word out there. [laughs.]

KM: Tell me about winning awards.

THT: It is kind of an afterthought. I mean I quilt because I love to do it. I also am a people person so getting out there in front of people and sharing, and sharing what I do, teaching, I love teaching. I love that moment when a light bulb goes off in the students head and they, I can do this, or that is a great idea. I can be having the worst day in the world and I have a class in the evening. Get in the car and it is like [sighs.] I can go and spend, get paid to spend time to work with students. The awards, you enter a show because I love the attention, I love seeing my work up there with everybody else. A recent quilt show, knowing that mine was part of that was incredible, and getting accepted into juried shows, having someone else say your work was good enough to hang up here is incredible. To get a phone call that your quilt has won an award, come pick me up off the floor because I would be a terrible quilt show judge. [laughs.] You do not want me judging quilting, because I wear my heart on my sleeve and it is the story behind the quilt or the quilter. I want to give them all awards because to get to that point, to get that up on the wall, I know that can happen, I know that can. The award is just icing on the cake. The award, acclimate that comes with it, I just. I'm a quilt junkie. [laughs.]

KM: [both talking at the same time while laughing.] You are doing great, so that is fine. What do you think makes a great quilt?

THT: I have trouble with that question when I read over it and was trying to come up with, its. A great quilt. I was once given a quilt and Aunt Ginny, if your listen to this, please take it in the frame of mind that I have given it. I have another aunt who is going through cancer and we had a very difficult time going on and we decided we were going to have a women's weekend. My Aunt Ginny has picked up quilting throughout her life, bits and pieces, and we were at dinner and for a thank you for organizing things she hands me a box and inside the box is an Amish wall hanging that she had made for me and it is not square and it is not very well. The feeling I had when I opened that box. If I could just pass that on to everybody--I mean somebody took the time to make me a quilt, if I could just package that that says it in a nutshell. That is why I quilt. I have seen a lot of quilts, I have done a lot of things, it is not the perfect quilt, but it is, it won an award in my book and it is hanging in my bedroom. Again, one of the first things I see when I wake up in the morning, so how better than that. That makes a beautiful quilt. The perfect quilt is one that speaks to you as soon as you look at it. You can look at art work in galleries and just walk by, and I don't get it, I don't get it. Sometimes you stand in front of a quilt and you get it. How could she make stitches that small, it is important, or how, but to walk in front of something and say Wow, that to me, like I said I would be a bad judge, because that would be. Lecturers or people are actually showing you their quilt and talking about their quilt, I would want all of them, because it is like, oh, and things like this, if you can get the stories behind the quilts, that is what. I once told somebody or heard somewhere 'you don't get to pick the heirlooms'. What my kids will value out of my collection will not be the one that won the first place ribbon, it will be the one with the aliens on the back of it. It will be the one that has personal meaning to them, that they snuggled while watching TV. Pull them out of closets, get them, make sure that people know what they've got, that makes a valuable quilt.

KM: Tell me about teaching in Japan.

THT: I was contacted by the City of Worthington, I live in Worthington, Ohio, to make commission by them to make a quilt for their sister city of Sayama City, Japan. In the process of meeting with them and talking about the quilt, they invited me. I actually joined the International Friendship Association. I'm a big joiner. I have a hard time saying no. Joining the association and in the process of commission making their gift to Sayama City from the delegation that was going over, I was invited to be part of the delegation that went over. I spent ten days in Japan. I home stayed with a quilter who was so excited to get an American quilter that she had me stay in her home ten days before her daughter's wedding. Her daughter got married the weekend after I left. In Japan, weddings are a big deal. They have two ceremonies, it is a big deal, and the fact that she wanted me to stay and actually carted me around all the different events was incredible. I was able to teach two quilting classes, appliqu classes while I was over there. The first class I taught was in a community center and I didn't have an interpreter. Now Japanese people know or study English as we would study French or Spanish in our high schools, they study English. But their speaking knowledge of English and their textbook knowledge of English is quite different, quite different. I was amazed at how a needle and thread and a pair of scissors and having my samples in front of them translates everything. The funniest thing was sitting there with these little Japanese ladies all around me and threading that needle on the first try and them all saying, 'Ohhhhhh.' Never have I threaded a needle under that much pressure, but it was just, any quilt group would have done that, so it was across the board. Because of that exchange program I have such a bigger world now, or such a smaller world, how do you look at it. They email me and I send presents back and forth and packages back and forth and I have sent then patterns and gotten back photos of completed quilts. Quilting in Japan, their houses are a lot smaller, the venues are a lot smaller, what they create is incredible, is absolutely incredible, and it is patchwork. It is hand sewing. They don't have the elaborate, so when Hisae Sakuma came and visited me my sewing room blew her away. My house blew her away. We are a middle income American family and it was just and I've had the honor of having them stay with me and having their children come and stay with my children. My kids haven't gone over there yet, but I have my fifteen year old had two fifteen year olds stay last summer that was just. That would not have happened had it not been for quilting. If it had not been for--of Teri took quilts, we will see if she can do something, and my quilt is hanging in Sakuma-sans home in Japan. That is pretty awesome.

KM: What does it look like?

THT: It is a silhouette of the logo of the City of Worthington, which is a street scene silhouette and then a sunset background with a border around it that is also a silhouette of leaves so that they could get, Worthington is a very, a suburb of Columbus, but also a small town feeling. It was definitely, I think it is a little Gone with the Wind-ish, but I had to get some specific colors in for their particular projects, so my husband used to walk by going done, [sings theme for Gone with the Wind.] when I was working on it, because it really did look like the Tara with this beautiful sunset hand dyed fabric behind a black silhouette of a building. It just. I was treated as a celebrity over there. I was interviewed as a famous American quilter. I said, no way, in my own little world. Maybe, someday. [laughs.]

KM: Tell me about the quilt that you sleep under.

THT: I have on my bed a king size Amish Irish Chain which contradiction of words that I made for my husband like 22nd or 23rd anniversary. It is a newer quilt. King size for the king size bed. I actually had a local quilt shop machine quilt it because it was so large. I don't enjoy piecing so it was a class I took with my group of sewing buddies, like I said I like Amish quilts. I may not make a lot of them, but I collect them, so I'm acquiring bits and pieces of Amish memorabilia and I have it in my room because that is, and my kids all sleep under quilts. I call my trunk show my working quilts. I will at any time have to go around and pull things off of different places to take them with me. I was getting ready for a lecture one Friday night and woke up the next morning and all the neatly stacked quilts that I had on the kitchen table were downstairs under eight teenagers because they had all, 'Oh that is okay. Let's just take them downstairs, and I'm like make up and pop.' We use our quilts. They are not something that I hide, I have them hanging all over the house, they are art. I had a friend--somebody said, 'Why are you hanging that quilt on the wall?' And my youngest said, 'Because the wall was cold.' [laughs.]

KM: That is great.

THT: That's, they are pieces of art on my wall, but they are also on just about every piece of furniture. [laughs.]

KM: Is there any part of quilting making that you don't enjoy besides piecing?

THT: I have to tell you, I need to get that last stitch and that binding on and that quilt is done. I miss it. The process of actually planning and designing the quilt is a blast. The process of sewing the quilt is absolutely wonderful if it goes right. If you struggle with things that is a whole other issue, but sitting and sewing on it is my joy. If I could sit and sew twenty-four seven, I would be the happiest, fattest, happiest person in the entire world. When you finish, you have to start all over again and it is like a friend is gone and a lot of times if I've made them for gifts, they are gone or they are being sent off to shows they are gone. I recently finished what I thought would be my last hand quilted, full size hand quilted quilt, I missed it so it won't be my last full size hand quilted quilt. I worked on that for several years so, you know, a part of everyday life was to go in and sit down and spend a few hours working on that quilt. Yeah, it is that finality of it being over, that project being over. That is when I have to call my friends over and they have to do the happy dance, because quilting [laughs.]

KM: We are getting near the end, so I always like to ask people if there is anything you want to share that I have not asked you, you have an opportunity.

THT: If you are even vaguely interested in quilting, go to that quilt shop or go to the local rec center and take a class. Try it because there is a reason through the centuries that women have picked up needle and thread, and men. There is a reason why it is still here and its, it is a reason why in Hawaii they hid things on the bottom of their quilts, because women were ableto have voices doing something as mundane as adding a needle to thread. Take that first step and you will not regret it at all. If it doesn't work out with that particular class, take another one because there are [laughs.] there are thousands of ways to sew and to create a quilt or to create something out of fiber. That is my legacy. I hope that is what my kids take out and my students and all my friends because I couldn't do this without my friends.

KM: Where is quiltmaking going?

THT: Oh my goodness, if you would look at any given show that you walk through, the abilities that women are able to take from starting out with a straight stitch on a sewing machine and creating the incredible amount of thread that they have put down on quilts with machine quilting, to taking appliqu to the most tiniest, it seems like we will take the simplest of things and see how far--Is quilting dying? No, there is a resurgence of people wanting to get back to that, doing that on their own. The worst hindrance to that would be time and I think that is where the sewing machines and the longarm and the people that are able to finish all of these UFOs [unfinished objects.] that we have sitting--quilting is out there and it is big and the economy, all those things effect us, but I think that they effect us in a plus as a minus. If we are not traveling far, we will attend more of our local events. We will get to that gallery. Maybe we won't have gone to see those quilts because they are not our style, but you know what, we are not going to be doing all of these other things. So I think quilting is there and it will always be there. I think it was centuries ago and it will be again. I don't think I want to live in a world without quilts.

KM: I know I wouldn't. [THT laughs.] That is for sure. I want to thank you taking your time for doing this interview with me, and we are going to conclude our interview at 10:10.