Project Summary

Gayle Pritchard conducted these interviews for her book Uncommon Threads (Ohio University Press, 2006). These interviews were not conducted as Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories interviews. However, we felt that the spirit of the interviews and the valuable information shared warranted inclusion in the project.

Quilters’ S.O.S. -- Save Our Stories (QSOS) is a grassroots oral history project created by the nonprofit Quilt Alliance that records, preserves, and shares the stories of living quiltmakers. The Quilt Alliance (formerly The Alliance for American Quilts) was formed in 1993 by Shelly Zegart and Eunice Ray of the Kentucky Quilt Project, and Karey Bresenhan and Nancy O'Bryant, corporate officers of Quilts, Inc. and founders of the non-profit Texas Quilt Search. In the fall of 1999, QSOS project was introduced by the Quilt Alliance and the International Quilt Festival. QSOS was one of several Quilt Alliance projects and partnerships created in an effort to preserve and celebrate the lives and stories of quilters and quiltmaking. Regional QSOS projects conducted interviews at quilt shows, guild meetings, and private homes across the country and around the world. The project continued though 2016. As of November 2016 the collection includes interviews with all fifty US states, the United States Virgin Islands, and nine other countries represented including: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Georgia (Republic), Germany, Japan, Kenya, Peru, and Russia. The QSOS oral history project is a partnership between the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History,  the Quilt Alliance, and the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.