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Audio Recording "Our ancestors didn't do this fancy quilting."

"Our ancestors didn’t do this fancy quilting."

About this Item

Title

  • "Our ancestors didn't do this fancy quilting."

Names

  • Johnson, Geraldine Niva, 1940- (Interviewer)
  • Todd, Zenna, 1916-2012 (Interviewee)
  • Todd, Zenna, 1916-2012 (Creator)

Created / Published

  • Sparta, North Carolina

Headings

  • -  Quilting
  • -  Quilt patterns
  • -  quilt marking
  • -  Ethnography
  • -  Interviews
  • -  United States -- North Carolina -- Sparta

Genre

  • Ethnography
  • Interviews

Notes

  • -  Mrs. Todd started making quilts for her family to use when she was 25. She teaches quiltmaking and makes quilts to sell through a local shop to supplement her income. Geraldine Johnson described her as "a bubbly, enthusiastic person who would be a natural à interpreter of Blue Ridge quilts." This interview includes good information on the economics and practice of making quilts to sell, criteria for selection of materials to use in quilts, and how quiltmaking has changed over time.
  • -  Transcription: ZT: And I did a few, back years ago, where you could take a, you know what a yardstick is, inch wide. Well, I would start on the quilt, and I would, you know, like start at one corner, and you know and come all the way across, diagonal with that. And quilt 'em. Maybe I'd lay off three together, then skip a little space, and lay off three more. And then sometimes I would check it and go the other way. And that made it, that made it real close and made it good. I've done this for a long time. You know, when I'd do it on my crazy quilts, you know, the first ones that I ever did. About three, about three lines close together and then you skip over, about the width of those three lines, you skip over and start again with three more lines. Makes 'em real pretty. And then, if you want to you can go on the other side and come back the other way. And that crosses, you know. I just thought that up. You know you get a lot of, you use a lot of imagination, you got to use your imagination in quilting. Diagonal. And sometimes I have done 'em straight up, you know. Straight up and down. Well, you know, probably our older ancestors, they didn't, they didn't a lot of this fancy, what I call fancy, well, they'd call it that too. They did the fan and the inch strip diagonal more than they did the fancy quilting. Because they would just used 'em for the warmth and, now then people uses quilts for bedspreads. And they're real popular now, quilts is.
  • -  For rights information please contact the Folklife Reading Room at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.contact

Medium

  • Sound tape reel : 7 in.

Call Number/Physical Location

  • AFC 1982/009: BR8-GJ-R99

Source Collection

  • Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project Collection (AFC 1982/009)

Repository

  • American Folklife Center

Online Format

  • audio

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that some of the materials in this collection are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions, and are therefore free to use and reuse. For example, the fieldwork in this collection is in the public domain in the United States.

However, the Library has obtained permission for the use of other materials, and presents additional materials for educational and research purposes in accordance with fair use under United States copyright law. For example, some of the recordings contain copyrighted music, and not all of the performers and other individuals who were recorded signed releases for public use of their work.

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Credit line: Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project collection (AFC 1982/009), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Johnson, Geraldine Niva, Zenna Todd, and Zenna Todd. "Our ancestors didn't do this fancy quilting.". Sparta, North Carolina, 1978. Audio. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/qlt000065/.

APA citation style:

Johnson, G. N., Todd, Z. & Todd, Z. (1978) "Our ancestors didn't do this fancy quilting.". Sparta, North Carolina. [Audio] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/qlt000065/.

MLA citation style:

Johnson, Geraldine Niva, Zenna Todd, and Zenna Todd. "Our ancestors didn't do this fancy quilting.". Sparta, North Carolina, 1978. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <aj.sunback.homes/item/qlt000065/>.