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Audio Recording "I give to the family, and I have sold some tops."

"I give to the family, and I have sold some tops."

About this Item

Title

  • "I give to the family, and I have sold some tops."

Names

  • Johnson, Geraldine Niva, 1940- (Interviewer)
  • Schockley, Maggie (Creator)
  • Schockley, Maggie (Interviewee)

Created / Published

  • Hillsville, Virginia

Headings

  • -  Quilting
  • -  income
  • -  quilting bees
  • -  quilting groups
  • -  Ethnography
  • -  Interviews
  • -  United States -- Virginia -- Hillsville

Genre

  • Ethnography
  • Interviews

Notes

  • -  Although Geraldine Johnson's notes indicate that this interview was cut short due to Mrs. Shockley's need to leave to take care of her mother, they nonetheless covered a lot of useful information within the limited time. Mrs. Shockley learned to quilt as a child, has made numerous quilts for her family, and sells quilt tops at a flea market. She talks a lot about her mother and has her mother's collection of quilt blocks. (Although not addressed in the interview, these blocks probably served as a reference collection, to remind the maker how the block goes together.) This interview is particularly interesting because of the amount of detail on the activities of an earlier quilting generation and because of Mrs. ShockleyÆs poignant comments about her realization that quilts are her motherÆs legacy.
  • -  Transcription: GJ: What do you do with them now? Do you most of them that you make now, do you sell or give to the family? / MS: I give to the family. And have sold, when I sell one, I just sell the top. I don't quilt it, because I don't have time. Now later on, uh, when I have the opportunity, I'm going to put all these together and I think I'll quilt 'em. If I'm still able, if I live to be ninety-five. I have quilted a few more, I said I had only quilted one here, but I quilted in the kitchen. We had, our church group quilted, and I could slide the table, my kitchen table out and we could put two quilts in the kitchen and get 'em out in a day when we'd have you know like six or eight people, we'd have a quilting bee and / GJ: Do you quilt in groups quite a bit? / MS: Not now. We did at that time. And we had a, our church group would quilt for people, you know, and quilt quilts to sell, but, I guess we're all getting old or lazy, or people are doing other things and we just don't do, you know, too many things like that any more. / GJ: When did you do that? / MS: I'd say about fifteen, sixteen years ago. Something like that. / GJ: So you mainly, when you make them, when you piece them, you sell them / MS: As just the tops. / GJ: And you sell them where? Flea markets? / MS: At flea markets, or you know people will come in, one of my neighbors, well she was a neighbor at one time, a college teacher at New River Community College, but they lived next door, and she was out the other day and saw one of the quilts and bought one of the tops. I think she's having it quilted for her mother-in-law for Christmas, and a lot of people will just buy the tops and have them done.
  • -  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-R104

Source Collection

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

Repository

  • American Folklife Center

Online Format

  • audio

Rights & Access

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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, Maggie Schockley, and Maggie Schockley. "I give to the family, and I have sold some tops.". Hillsville, Virginia, 1978. Audio. https://www.loc.gov/item/qlt000167/.

APA citation style:

Johnson, G. N., Schockley, M. & Schockley, M. (1978) "I give to the family, and I have sold some tops.". Hillsville, Virginia. [Audio] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/qlt000167/.

MLA citation style:

Johnson, Geraldine Niva, Maggie Schockley, and Maggie Schockley. "I give to the family, and I have sold some tops.". Hillsville, Virginia, 1978. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/qlt000167/>.