Reporting from Quiltropolis
If you think quiltmaking is a quaint hobby pursued by a few old ladies just trying to kill time, you are wrong. Today, more Americans (around ten million) are quilting than ever before. Quilters tend to be women, but there are talented men among us. Money-wise, quilters spend around $3.76 billion per year on cotton fabric, patterns, thread, and computerized sewing machines that cost more than many power tools.
How do I know this? Because I spent three decades deep in the quilting industry. I earned my living by writing best-selling how-to books, traveling the U.S. (and beyond) to teach technique classes and lecture for quilt guilds and at quilt conferences, co-hosting “Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting” nationwide on public television, and publishing Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting magazine, the top-circulated quilting periodical in the world at the time.
My career started here in little Winterset, when, at age twenty-six—inspired by the American Bicentennial—I marched into the ISU Extension office on the town square and requested a beginners’ quilting class. I learned the basics in those sessions and also met Liz Porter, another young mom, who joined forces with me to become the quilting duo known nationally as Fons & Porter. We went all the way to the top in an industry which, at the time we met, was in its infancy. Via public television, Liz and I taught millions of people how to make quilts.
We sold our business in 2006, Liz moved to Texas a few years later, and I gradually directed my energies away from the national quilting scene toward my own small town. Over the past few years, to my delight, Winterset has become quiltier and quiltier. It’s safe to say Winterset is the Quiltropolis of Iowa.
The Iowa Quilt Museum (IQM), which opened in 2016, wasn’t exactly my idea, but I’m a founding board member. The museum, which has a single, gorgeous gallery, is located in an historic building across the street from the Madison County Courthouse. The unique storefront was the J.C. Penney store for over 70 years. IQM is a “non-collecting” museum that mounts four exhibitions per year. Though “Iowa” is in our name, the quilts we display come from all over the U.S. Sometimes we showcase the work of a single artist. Other exhibitions are themed, such as the museum’s inaugural show, “Three Centuries of Red + White Quilts.”
Every first weekend in June, the Iowa Quilt Festival happens in Winterset and its outskirts, drawing hundreds of enthusiasts for a three-day event that includes lectures, classes, a retreat during which people simply sew all day long, and “The Airing of the Quilts,” on Saturday, when quilts are displayed all over town, including inside a couple of covered bridges and on beds tucked into the porticoes of Madison County’s 1876 limestone courthouse. (We call these displays “bed turnings.” A half dozen or so quilts are stacked on top of each other—layered, in other words—and a volunteer peels them back one by one for viewers to enjoy.)
Piece Works, a fantastic quilt shop, with about a zillion bolts of 100% cotton fabric available for purchase, is on Court Avenue, just a few storefronts down the street from the Iowa Quilt Museum. More Pieces, the shop’s rentable retreat space, is around the corner from the shop.
Last year, Quiltfolk, an Oregon-based company, established Quiltfolk Studios on the second floor of IQM’s historic building. This June 13-16, Quiltfolk will host its first “Quilt Journeys Writing Retreat.” Quilty people will gather for guidance and fun, as they learn how to write their personal quilt stories.
I know—Winterset is famous as the birthplace of legendary actor John Wayne, and as the setting for “The Bridges of Madison County.” With no disrespect to Wayne, Eastwood, Streep, or Waller, Americans (mostly women) have been making quilts since long before any of those luminaries were born. For over two centuries, Americans have been conceived under quilts, born into quilts, married with quilts, honored with quilts, comforted by quilts, and passed away under quilts. Movie stars and novelists come and go, but there has never been a time in our history when women weren’t making quilts for those they love.
This is my first report from Quiltropolis, in Madison County, Iowa. Watch this space for future bulletins.
I’m a fledgling member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Below is a list of the whole gang. Click on any of these writers to see what they have to say.
A fact filled and fun first column! thanks. my mom loved quilting. I'm so happy that she made multiple ones for her kids and grandkids before she passed. all are still on beds or hanging from our walls.
Welcome aboard! I am eager to read about all things 'quilty' and 'not quilty'!