By Bonita Wilborn
Another member of Scottsboro’s Peace By Piece Quilt Guild is Carolyn Swaim. Carolyn started quilting in 1989, 32 years ago.
Carolyn stated, “I started quilting at home, trying to remember what my grandmother did. One day my friend told me that I needed to take some classes. So I joined the Huntsville Quilt Guild and started taking quilting classes.”
When Carolyn became a member of the Huntsville Quilt Guild, she lived in Huntsville and didn’t have to travel very far to attend the meetings. After a while, Carolyn and her husband moved to Woodville, causing her to drive much farther to attend the meetings. It was a long drive, but one that was worth the effort to continue her quilting education.
Then in 1995, Carolyn learned that efforts were in progress to start a Quilt Guild in Scottsboro. “I was all for it. I thought, ‘This is great. I won’t have to drive all the way to Huntsville.’ Jane Callahan was from somewhere in Tennessee, but she wanted to start the Quilt Guild in Scottsboro.”
Carolyn explained that the first meeting was simply a gathering to see how many people were interested in establishing a Quilt Guild in Scottsboro. Ten people showed up for the initial meeting of the Scottsboro Quilt Guild.
Carolyn recalled, “I didn’t go to the first meeting, but I did go to the first one where we had a program.
It was very interesting, and we did a lot of programs. But my love is appliqué. I love the feel of it, the different patterns, and the tiny pieces. I do paper piecing.”
Appliqué is ornamental needlework in which pieces or patches of fabric in different shapes and patterns are sewn onto a larger piece to form a picture or a pattern. Appliqué is used extensively in quilting.
Carolyn explained paper piecing and how she uses it. “I use freezer paper. I iron it on my fabric, and then I turn the paper up and baste it onto the quilt. I stitch around it and leave a small opening where I can pull the paper out.”
Carolyn’s love for appliqué has gained her granddaughters a quilt at their high school graduation and again for their college graduation.
“Appliqué is a very slow quilting process,” Carolyn said. “My husband loved to watch TV, but I didn’t, so I would sit and appliqué while he watched TV.”
In recalling some of the Quilt Guild activities that she has participated in, Carolyn commented, “The Huntsville Quilt Guild was a very large group. We had national speakers that would teach specific forms of quilting, and then we would have a program. We had those about six times per year.”
Quilt Guild meetings also have a “Show and Tell” segment where Guild members show off their handiwork and tell about the various aspects of that particular piece of work. The three ladies I talked with about quilting all agreed that Show and Tell is the best part of the meeting. The skills and techniques learned and perfected by the individual members while working at home and then shared with their fellow members are how quilters learn new skills themselves.
Some quilters belong to multiple Quilt Guilds at the same time. It affords them a greater spectrum of quilting knowledge to be gleaned from the various guild members and can then be shared with other quilters.
An aptitude for teaching those newly learned skills is also helpful when sharing new techniques with fellow Guild members. The late Jo Reed was an example of such a Guild member.
“You always learn something at the meetings no matter how long you’ve been quilting,” Carolyn added.
