Alex Anderson
November 25, 2008
On November 1st, Alex Anderson received the Silver Star award at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas. This award is given to a quilter “whose work and influence has made – and continues to make – a sizable and positive impact on the quilting industry and community.” She has certainly done that, with countless books, eleven years on HGTV with Simply Quilts and now with her online collaboration with Ricky Tims – The Quilt Show.
Last week I had a chance to talk to Alex about Festival, her new line of fabrics, her newly re-issued book, her annual retreat in Livermore, California, and all that is new and exciting in her life.
Alex said:
“Festival was great.”
Alex said that the poor economy was not in evidence at festival. Quilters were shopping up a storm and the “festive mood” and the quilts were fabulous.
The festival featured a rare exhibit from the Daughters of the American Republic – “Quilts of a Young Country”. Some of these quilts go back to the 1750s.
Because of Alex’s Silver Star award, they had a special exhibit of her quilts and memorabilia including photos of her at the age of four, knitting at her grandma’s knee. Alex’s children, parents, and in-laws were all on hand to see Alex get her award.
Alex said she was struck by the “diversity of all the quilts”. The winners were “all across the board” and the work was “just astonishing”. There were also a lot of young quilters and a lot of young winners.
Alex’s husband John works with her on The Quilt Show and was with her at festival. Although Alex didn’t have much of an opportunity to see the show, John did. Alex said he is becoming more tuned in to quilting and thinks that we are just starting to see the tip of the iceberg in terms of embellishment.
Alex pointed out that the quality of the quilts is improving significantly. The art quilts in particular are getting more and more sophisticated and she mentioned that the Japanese quilts especially are so technically perfect and beautiful that they have drastically raised the bar for all other quilters around the world.
Alex’s fabric line, Whisperings. Photo by Ruth Godwin of The Quilt Show
QE: Tell me about your new projects. I understand you have a new line of fabrics coming out.
AA: My new line is “Whisperings” from P&B Textile. This will be a stash builder with shimmering colors and will play nicely with other fabrics.
Alex said they are wrapping the bolts right now and it should be shipped to stores within the next two months. P& B Textiles will have a free pattern on their website as soon as they can after the fabric comes out.
P&B wants to do more fabric lines and when they asked Alex what she wanted to do, she suggested a monochromatic line that would bridge old fabrics with the new colors. She worked with a team of designers at P&B Textiles to create the “Whisperings” line.
Alex’s book Start Quilting has sold over a quarter of a million copies and has recently been re-issued in its third edition.
“It’s a comprehensive, inexpensive book for new quilters.”
She has refreshed the older quilts in the book, added more quilts and additional information and the price has stayed the same – just $12.95! She originally wrote this book for new quilters so they would have a simple, inexpensive source of information and be able to try quilting and see if they liked it without shelling out a ton of money.
She also has a new book coming out – Alex Anderson’s Hand and Machine Appliqué – it will be out in late spring 2009.
Alex shared this picture of her learning to knit at her grandmother’s knee.
QE: Tell me about your retreat in Livermore. What is it? What happens there? Who is involved? How can people attend or get more information?
The Livermore, California retreat started eight years ago, growing out of a message board on Alex’s original website. The members had gotten to know one another online and wanted to meet in person for a retreat. Susan Moore from the message board offered to run the retreat. They started with 25 people, but it grew and grew and now they host two back-to-back retreats of 38 people each, every November. For more information, check out the retreat website. The site has information on attending and gorgeous photos of the quilts.
Every year, APQS holds a contest and sends two lucky people to the retreat. If you want to enter the contest of next year’s retreat, keep an eye out on the APQS website.
Alex described the retreat as a “Quilt party” where they “sew, sew, sew!” Alex and Paula Reid hold little breakout sessions to address pre-selected specific subject matter and spend the rest of the time chatting about whatever people are working on. The people who attend the retreat are like family .
Alex said she loves that everyone there knows each other and that they have a deep, rich history together. She enjoys teaching small groups because she gets the pleasure of watching new quilters discover the art. It’s how she started out and it’s good to go back to her roots. One of the neat things about being a teacher is that she becomes a “carrier pigeon” of information. Alex says she learns techniques and can pass them along to other quilters every time she teaches.
“Quilting is a lifestyle – not just sewing. When you become part of the fold you couldn’t be around better people.”
Coming up in January (20 – 23), 2009 Alex is teaching a class at Alden Lane Nursery, in Livermore CA. This is a three day signature workshop called Simply Stars. There are still openings for this class, so call 925-447-0280 if you’d like to register.
Alex told me that she gets six weeks off over the holidays and gets to sew! She’s very excited about the downtime.
She is doing a Super Seminar in Mesa, Arizona with Ricky Tims and Libby Lehman at the beginning of December. (I’ll have a lot more information about the Ricky Tims Super Seminar in my interview with Ricky coming up soon!)
After that she doesn’t have to travel again until January when she gets to go to Hilton Head for Jinny Beyer’s last hoorah. This will be Jinny’s last seminar.
In the new year, Alex will be working with AccuQuilt and is especially excited about their new Go product. She’ll have some of her own AccuQuilt templates coming out too, so look for more news on that soon.
Finally, Alex will be featured in Mark Lipinski’s Quilter’s Home – Part of the “At Home” series in February 2009.
The Quilt Show
I asked Alex to tell me about The Quilt Show, which is an online quilting show she does with Ricky Tims. Before getting into how excited she is about The Quilt Show, Alex wanted me to mention that she did not leave Simply Quilts for the Internet. HGTV chose to end the show.
Alex said that she didn’t leave HGTV, HGTV left quilters. She mentioned that she often gets scolded by quilters who don’t know the whole story. She said, “Imagine being fired from your job and then being yelled at for it!”
The Quilt Show is produced in front of a live audience and presented completely on the Internet. The beauty of this is that Alex (and her partner Ricky Tims) are no longer beholden to a network. They can do what they want and need to do to promote quilting and quilters in all their diversity.
They have the ability to tell stories of quilters with deep, heart-touching stories. For example, Alex wanted to feature artist Mary Fisher on Simply Quilts, but the network would not allow her to discuss anything “controversial”, such as Mary’s personal affliction with, and advocacy for people suffering from, HIV/AIDS. Alex said she chose not to have Mary on Simply Quilts rather than ignore her important work and cheapen her message. Mary was one of the first guests featured on The Quilt Show. (Episode 108 if you’re looking for it. You’ll need to be a member in order to view it.)
Alex described The Quilt Show as a world-wide quilt guild that you can go to every day. Every other week you have a new, fabulous teacher and you can participate whenever you want to, night or day. It all started because of a substantial grant from Bernina. They too, saw the value of the Internet and its incredible reach.
The Internet provides instantaneous feedback, so Alex and Ricky can change and improve the show on the fly. There is not the same kind of lengthy production cycle as a TV show and you don’t have to wait for the next season to try a new direction. And the Internet gives everyone a chance to participate. Even the shyest member can post to the member blogs. There is also a shop, a show and tell area, a message forum, live chat, and everything that makes an online community work.
You can even see a free episode (# 303).
The Quilt Show has all the features of a typical real life guild, teachers, even block of the month, but the best part of it is the community. Alex’s husband John has said numerous times that he really cares about the members, the people on the website. Alex told me she would give up stitching if she could keep the people, but she would not give up the people for anything.
Read more about Alex at any of these sites:
Alex Anderson Quilts
Alex Anderson Quilt Retreat
The Quilt Show
Quilter Blogs & Store Search