QSOS Interview with Kathi Babcock

Phyllis Jordan (PJ): This is Phyllis Jordan, todays date is November the 5th,

2001; the time is 4:17 and Im conducting an interview with Kathi Babcock,

Kathi with an "I" for Quilters S.O.S. Save Our Stories a project of the

Alliance for American Quilts. Kathi and I are at the International Quilt

Festival in Houston, Texas. Kathi, will you tell me about the quilt you brought today?

Kathi Babcock (KB): Yes maam. In 2006 or 2007 our town received an invitation

to make a quilt for an exhibit that would be hung in Lafayette, Louisiana in

honor of the Marquis Lafayettes 250th birthday or something, I think it was

250. They sent out invitations to towns that had names associated with Lafayette

because he did this triumphal tour and apparently a lot of cities in the United

States ended up being named after him. I live in La Grange in Fayette county

[Texas.] and La Grange was the name of Lafayettes chteau in France and so

were kind of a double whammy that our town and our county are named for

Lafayette. One of the girls in town got really excited about the idea and our

town ended up contributing three quilts to the exhibit. I captained this one.

There were other people in the group that made blocks but I primarily designed,

built, and quilted it and it was exhibited at that exhibit in Lafayette,

Louisiana and after that exhibit, it was chosen to go on to, it went to France

and it went to six museums in France included the Muse de Toile de Jouy, you

know Toile where it was originally made and at that time if you looked on their

website, this was the quilt they picked for their website and when that six

months was over as it traveled, it came back to the United States and the DAR

Museum in Washington, D.C. picked the exhibit up. So it hung at the DAR Museum

for a few months before it finally came home to me. It doesnt belong to me,

but its mine and I think I got more than my fifteen minutes of fame out of

this one so when they asked us to pick something that represented us, I guess I

liked this one best.

PJ: Well this has a special meaning, is there anything else you could tell us

about it?

KB: About this particular quilt?

PJ: Right.

KB: The guild voted because it belongs to them because I didnt pay for the

fabric. Since Karey Bresenhan has built her museum in our town, La Grange,

Texas, they voted that we would give it to her to be something that perhaps

someday might be hung at that museum and I wasnt at the meeting that day, or

I wouldve said, "No, I think you should give it to me," and yes thats

where its going to go so its still at my house waiting to be presented to

Karey who will become its future owner, or the museum will become its future

owner I guess.

PJ: Someone looking at this quilt would conclude what about you and your group?

KB: One of the things they would conclude about me is that medallion quilts are

kind of my favorite form because I have trouble seeing a whole quilt at once but

I can build it row by row by row so I like starting with the center and kind of

building out from there and both this and my quilt that is in "Lone Stars III"

are done on a medallion format. Probably a lot of what I do is. I also work

primarily in kind of a nineteenth century color pallet. I like reproduction

fabrics. I tried to carry out the theme of Lafayette and Washington, I did use a

lot of things that werent, but I think it still has that flavor. I have old

taste maybe.

PJ: You said, is it hanged, how do you use this quilt? Is it hanging in your

home right now?

KB: I have an antique fruit ladder, you know an apple orchard ladder in my

living room, and its been, since it came back from its triumphal tour,

its been hanging there in the living room because I know my time with it is

short so I have several places in my house that will accommodate different sized

quilts. Theres a rod in the dining room that I switch out with quilts of a

certain size and the larger ones either hang above my bed or over the fruit

ladder in the living room and I rotate them as I get tired of looking at them

and want to see something else. This has been there because I know one day I

wont get to have it anymore, so Ive been enjoying it.

PJ: We know what your plans are for this quilt, when you designed this quilt,

did you design from the inside and go out?

KB: Yes. The center was in a drawer, because Id made it at a workshop on how

to do a mariners compass from some famous quilter that came and did a workshop

and the day that we were going to make the quilt, we were going to send to the

Lafayette exhibit, there were too many women trying to work on one project and

the organizer wasnt organized and I got a little frustrated at the lack of

organization and probably because I wasnt in control, so I went home, get

this center that was just languishing in a drawer and said, "Lets make

something to go around this." We started brainstorming. The theme of the quilt

was, the theme of the exhibit was to be the friendship of Lafayette and

Washington and so we started doing the whole friendship star and you know, what

kind of blocks can we come up with that will follow that theme. So yes, it was

built from the inside out.

PJ: Lets go back to talking about you. Tell us about your interest in quiltmaking.

KB: Okay. Ive always sewn, always. I sew on the little Featherweight that my

mom bought when I was an infant to start making childrens clothes and

curtains and things. So quilting was just an extension of other sewing, you sew

two pieces of fabric together the same way you make pants, and I was in college

during those, that whole bicentennial-type time period that magazines had all

started showing quilts hung behind your sofa and you know, it just kind of

created an awareness that I hadnt been as aware of. I got a couple of books

for Christmas one year and started making olive green and gold corduroy quilt

patterned pillows and kind of went from there. I was nineteen or twenty and

simultaneously started a hand pieced grandmothers flower garden, because

thats what people start with and hand appliqud Baltimore album that I

wasnt aware was a Baltimore album because that vocabulary Im not sure had

even been invented yet in 1965, 75 .That was kind of it. I got married when I

was young and poor and you cant knit anymore because you cant afford yarn

and you cant buy those crewel embroidery kits that I used to buy because you

cant afford those, but you could afford fifty cent a yard fabric off that

remnant table because you were supposed to make quilts out of remnants right?

You werent supposed to buy new fabric, so buying fabric was cheating, but

remnants, that made it okay. I could afford that. If you pieced by hand you were

pretty slow, so you know quilting was a craft that I could do because I knew how

to sew and I could afford no matter what.

PJ: Did you learn from one particular person how to quilt?

KB: No. I got a book for Christmas and I muddled through. I learned that bias is

tricky [laughs.] I learned that polyesters a problem. I learned that when you

try to layer things for appliqu if you put a dark fabric under a light fabric

you can see it and it doesnt look good. You know, you just learn how to cope

with bias and how to deal with shadowing and not to use sheets as your backing

fabric, you know you just evolve over time because I didnt just make a quilt

and sit back, I started making quilts like crazy. You just learn as you go along.

PJ: How many hours a week do you estimate you quilt?

KB: My friend asked me that after she saw that question on the list and I said,

"Hm, maybe ten," she looked at me and said, "No you dont," its like,

"Okay, Ill think about that, twenty to forty." [laughs.] I dont know it

depends, it depends on what else is going on that week. The girls meet on

Tuesdays and thats at least six hours that we sit and--

PJ: The girls are?

KB: The quilting girls in La Grange [Texas.] we go to the Second Baptist Church

and we sew for three hourstalking as fast as we can and then we stop and eat

lunch then we sew for another three hours talking as fast as we can. So every

Tuesday thats you know, thats one day, thats six and a couple hours

every night while you watch TV and it all starts adding up.

PJ: Do you have a memory of your first quilt?

KB: Well yeah, my first two quilts were the grandmothers flower garden and

the Baltimore album, neither of which have ever been finished, but thats

okay. The top of the flower garden is done and its half quilted, but its

the ugliest quilt known to man and I used some of the remnants to make a car

seat for my daughter and when I washed it, one of the fabrics completely

disappeared, so one of the fabrics that I used in the quilt is self

disintegrating and so I was always a little worried about finishing it after

that because, kind of like an antique quilt that the fabrics just. Well this one

when first washing its just going to be gone, and will kind of ruin the

effect of a quilt, so Ive always threatened my kids that when they graduated

from college or something they were going to get that quilt as a gift, but I

never made good with that threat.

PJ: Are there any other quiltmakers among your family?

KB: My mother started quilting after me kind of I was doing it she started doing

it. Apparently my great-great-grandmother was quite the quilter and she lived in

a very small town in Missouri and lived in the big house in town, it was the

combination of her home and the funeral parlor, and you know it was a big house

and so she had a room that was large enough that you could leave a quilt frame

set up in, so thats where all the ladies in town went. I grew up under my

great-grandmothers quilts because they were considered utility quilts because

no one in our family valued them. They werent utility quilts, they were very

nicely done quilts, but both my mother and my grandmother considered it a

homemade quilt, you know something that the help used rather than the family

used, so they were a little bit embarrassed by them. We just, we used them and

washed them and used them and washed them and you know some of my earliest

memories are the double wedding ring that was on my bed and trying to play games

with the patterns of how many of these reds can I find and how many blues and is

there another arc somewhere in the quilt thats exactly like this arc and I

just, I think quilts are wonderful and I think I always have. Maybe its in

the blood.

PJ: How does quiltmaking impact your family?

KB: Well theres economically [laughs.] especially after I buy the longarm

that I plan to this week. I live, breathe and eat quilts. I go to quilt shows, I

hang out with quilting people, I have quilts hanging in my house. We have a

quilt museum now thats four blocks away from mine so I am docent and

assistant volunteer at that. Since at this point in time its just my husband

and I that live at my house that pretty much has an impact. My children sleep

under quilts in their homes in the states where they live, so I create an impact

further away. My granddaughter sent me a card, shes almost six, for Halloween

and inside it said, "I love you, Grandma. I love you, Grandma, pajama girl, you

are the best quilter." So as she thinks of me, thats obviously one of the

adjectives that she uses to describe me, even when nobodys brought it up. I

think when you do something as much as I do quilting, it has an impact [laughs.]

I was at the bank a couple of weeks ago, for my church, arranging for monies to

be transferred from one place to another and in the middle of doing all of this

the lady looked at me and she said, "Oh, youre the quilter," because I live

in a little town and you know after weve had a fair, after weve had a

quilt show, and the pictures go in the paper, my pictures in the paper. I,

its kind of part of my aura now. I like that.

PJ: Tell us, have you ever used quilts to get through a difficult time?

KB: Probably not. I, for the last twenty-five years Ive always quilted, so

whether I was going through difficult times or good times I was using quilting,

so not specifically, no.

PJ: Tell us about an amusing experience that has occurred from your quiltmaking

or your teaching.

KB: Thats one of those thing you would have had to prime me for in advance,

because Im not just thinking of anything.

PJ: You would like to pass and well get back to it if you think of something?

KB: If I think of something, thats a good idea.

PJ: Okay. What do you find pleasing about quiltmaking?

KB: I like a lot of things. I like, even if I did it in a vacuum, obviously I

like fabric. I like pattern. I like the process. Im a little bit of a A.D.D.

kind of girl, I have a lot of energy and Ive always, Ive always used

things like knitting or things as a way of calming myself down. I watch

television better if I have something in my hands because otherwise I hop up and

down a lot. The social aspects have been a whole another wonderful part of it, I

do a lot of internet friendship group type things that have been a lot of fun.

You come to festival in Houston [Texas.] and you meet up with the lady from

Australia that youve been chatting with online for years and she introduces

you to this lady from England that shes friends with and so that sort of

friendship. The accolades are not too bad when quilts are for picked up for

exhibits and you know, you get that call from Karey Bresenhan that says that

your quilt is going to be in the book. Those kind of things have been, have been

a lot of fun. If it wasnt the quilting itself, the manipulating of fabric,

the seeing what it looks like when you put those colors together, if that part

wasnt fun, then the rest of it wouldnt follow.

PJ: What aspects of quiltmaking do you not enjoy?

KB: Putting on a sleeve [laughs.] I pretty much like all of it. I think I always

want to be done right after I start and so sometimes, sometimes the lag time as

you get something done is a little hard to put up with but I like pretty much

all of it.

PJ: You said you belong to a group that meets at the Baptist church; do you have

any other groups that you belong to?

KB: La Grange [Texas.] is a very, for the size of the town La Grange [Texas.] is

its a multi-town guild in La Grange [Texas.] that I belong to and have had

some [inaudible.] since Ive been in that particular town and Ive sought

out guilds as Ive moved. My husband was in the army so we did a little bit of

that. The little Tuesday group is just kind of a social group, from the larger guild.

PJ: Have advances in technology influenced your work, and if so, how?

KB: Well, you know the first stuff I did, I cut templates out of the bottom of a

Kleenex box and traced with a ink pen because I didnt even know about things

like pigmas so I, its come a long way baby. I have a longarm in my living

room and I prefer machine quilting to handquilting because I can make more and

make more faster, so technology has had a lot to do with it. I love machine

quilting and I dont think anybody can look at some of the amazing quilts that

are here and go, "Oh thats machine quilted, oh no its not really a quilt

unless its hand quilted." It just, the technological perfection that you can

achieve, it just, I think machine quilting is wonderful and so I like, I embrace

technology even though I use the sewing machine that my mom bought as I was born

as my machine piece of sewing equipment. I still like, thats still technology

right? Its not a needle and thread; Im not much of a handwork girl.

PJ: What are your favorite techniques and materials?

KB: Im pretty much a reproduction fabric, Im a nineteenth century old time

girl and although I did just say I dont do much handwork, I love hand

applique. I think the best quilts combine a little bit of applique and a little

bit of piecing because I think it just, its kind of like curves need straight

lines to compliment them I think. I think the piecing and the appliqu go

realy well together and the more you put into a quilt, the more interesting it

is. I pretty much machine quilter, I like things small, part of that is because

you know that whole turning twenty type quilt pattern that you can finish in a

day. At the rate I sew, if I sewed like that, Id have more quilts than I knew

what to do with. So Ive had to slow down and start getting smaller and more

intricate and try to, try to strive for something thats technically difficult

and a little bit, a little bit hard just to kind of slow down so that Im not

producing a quilt every three months. After a while, it really does become a

question, "What are you going to do with that one?"

PJ: Describe how your studio or your family or the place that you create?

KB: Well I live in an old house, 1894, and back them they built houses, my style

of house, has a parlor and a living room and I sew in the parlor, which is

basically a large room that doesnt have a closet, so it doesnt have a

bedroom, right? Its got my longarm on one side and its got an armoire with

quilts piled in one corner and its got my desk with my sewing machine on the

other and its got the roll-top desk with a computer on the other side and

its pretty well stuffed to the gills with fabric. Its not tidy, you will

never see it tidy I promise and theres always at least three projects going

on and its draped over poles and piled here and its chaotic and thats

how I work.

PJ: Tell us how you balance your time.

KB: Well I dont have a job. I dont have to work because Im well taken

care of by a spouse whos doing that for me so I dont have to balance a

work life. I, if theres a volunteer organization in town, my names on

their list so I balance my life pretty much like everybody else does. Theres

the things you got to do and theres the things you want to do and you try and

squeeze as many want to dos into the what you got to dos as you do, and my

husband knows that theres not going to be a hot cooked meal every night for

dinner and that at lunch hes on his own and I sew as much as I can.

PJ: Do you use a design wall?

KB: Rarely. The room that I sew in has seven windows, a door, and pocket doors

that no longer open to anything but it still cuts the room up and theres no

wall space for a design wall. My longarms in the room and the closest I come

to being able to have a design wall is that I hang things off the pole that

stretches across it. I have a homemade little accordion thing that I can fold

out if Im doing something with blocks that I really need to be careful, but

usually its just the floor. You know, Ive tried like drawing things out

and using design walls and things, and maybe its because I never plan far

enough ahead, you know Im always just kind of the next border, the next six

inches, Ive never, I dont have one so I cant use one and I dont

think that way because I dont think far enough in advance.

PJ: What do you think makes a great quilt?

KB: Good design. We talk about that a lot as we walk around festival and like a

quilt. Then theres some that look good up close and theres some that look

good far away and theres some that are both and I think thats a key

element that it has to look good both ways. That the fabrics that are used have

to speak to you when you get up close enough to start noticing the details and

the overall design of it. It has to look good enough when you step back away and

you dont see the small details that you like both. I have this thing about

quilts that are flat, I know that the workmanship that does into it shows in

that overall flatness of a quilt and so when they hang straight and true, that

always makes my heart sing. I appreciate a well hand quilted quilt. I appreciate

a well machine quilted quilt. These Japanese ladies with their taupes and their

intricate details, wow, those are pretty awesome. You know even when I go into

areas that I dont appreciate quite as much, like art quilts, I still think

that good design, use of color, balanced imagery, I think all of that I could

appreciate those as well.

PJ: What makes a quilt appropriate for a museum or a special collection?

KB: Well, gosh special collections could be a whole different thing because I

can understand a special collection being representing a certain period of time,

and so anything that fell into that certain period of time would be appropriate,

no matter how ugly or poorly made, I mean if thats what youre collecting.

I think a museum piece would need to be something that, that spoke maybe to the

greatest number of people. Ive never understood opera, myself, and I think

there are a lot of us out there, and I think in the same way that there are some

art quilts that are so poorly understood or appreciated by, or may be

appreciated by a smaller segment of the person who would be coming to see a

museum that, it seems to me that a work that anybody coming in off the street,

whether they were a quilter or quilt aficionado or just a museum go-er, would be

able to look at and say, "Wow," would be the best kind of quilts to include. My

quilts, those would be the good, no [laughs.]

PJ: [laughs.]

KB: In a museum, Id love it. It was, it was, it was at the DAR. I mean when

they called, you know when they call you up and they say, "Would it be alright

if we used your quilt," its like, "Oh yeah, oh yeah."

PJ: Whose works are you drawn to and why?

KB: Gosh. Its changed over the years. In my, in my, in the early nineties

when I discovered that there were stores that sold quilt fabric, oh my goodness,

and I gave up life as I know it to do quilting pretty much around the clock. I

checked out every book that the library had and I was a giant Jinny Beyer fan,

she was doing neat things with border prints and mitered corners and I wanted to

be Jinny Beyer when I grew up. Then I went through a phase that I was pretty

folk arty and red wagon and Linda Brannock and Jan Patek were my heroes. I think

Ive pretty much come along and I think its a narrowed focus but its

also a comfort zone, I like antique quilts and I like, and so I probably am not

so much focused anymore on any particular maker or artist as I am on antique

quilts and some of the things that people are replicating and that sort of

design style. Im looking at each state has had its quilt days and they

come up with a book from those days, those are probably more of what I collect

and buy in terms of books than specific authors or quilters.

PJ: Do your quilts reflect your community or your region?

KB: Nope, nope [laughs.] My part of town, the ladies that I quilt with, no one

is interested in doing reproduction-y stuff. Im not mainstream in that way at

all. I had to; Ive kind of found my comfort, my circle of friends, my peers

in the international community through the internet more than through my part of

the world.

PJ: What do you think about the importance of quilts in American life?

KB: Well, gosh I dont know. Are quilts important in American life? Theyre,

I think, I think its important that we preserve any heritage that we have.

Im glad that quilts continue to grow in value and are recognized as an art

form and not just the way my family regarded our family quilts as just you know,

useful. Im glad that theyre popular enough that somebody decided they

needed to put a museum in La Grange, Texas. But if theres somebody out there

that doesnt think theyre very important, thats okay with me too.

PJ: In what ways do you think quilts have special meaning for womens history

in America?

KB: I think that women in America have been given the role of provider of for

the home and so we did the sewing, we did the practical tasks of the home and I

think its wonderful to see how just providing for the home some women did

more than just sew a few pieces of fabric together to keep their family warm,

but did elevate it. Unfortunately those tended to be the women who had the

means, who had the free time that could spend it doing that.

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

KB: Im sorry the first answer that comes to my head is finding enough storage

space to stash their fabrics.

PJ: [laughs.]

KB: [laughs.] Took an Australian lady through my house yesterday and she asked

me where my fabric was [laughs.] I was like, "Well, pick a room," [laughs.]

"Its everywhere." I think keeping it fresh, keeping it interesting, I think

that all crafts go through a saturation phase, you know I had a grandmother that

did needlepoint after a while, all needlepoints started to kind of look the same

and every surface in her house was covered in a needlepointed something or other

and you kind of ran out of room for your craft. I think that to attract younger

people and to keep the people that are doing it still interested, you need

teachers that are coming up with new ideas and fabric makers that, you know if

the only fabric that was being made was reproduction fabric, I think that we

would be losing quilters by the drove so you know, even what I like. I think

continually, kind of recreating it in and of itself and theres been kind of a

little bit more emphasis it seems lately in the smaller things, like bags and

accessory type quilting projects as opposed to making a quilt. I think thats

good. I think you know a little bit of something for everybody.

PJ: Weve covered most of the questions on this. Is there anything else that

you would like to have added to this?

KB: I think its wonderful that there is a forum like Save Our Stories. I

dont know that Kathi Babcock is the person whose quilts need to be in the

Library of Congress but there are people that are going to be interviewed

through this process that people will some day be researching and it will be

good to have their words recorded. I think making that history available is a

wonderful thing and Im glad that that was a component of this book and

festival this year and it continues to be a part of it.

PJ: Well Id like to thank Kathi Babcock, with a "I," for allowing me to

interview her today for the Quilters S.O.S. Save Our Stories oral history

project. Our interview concluded at 4:54.