I’ve known Joe Cunningham since the late 1970’s/early 1980’s. Though he no longer lives nearby, Joe grew up in the Flint, Michigan area. Now living in sunny California with his wife and two sons, Joe is more active than ever before with the world of quilting. I was thrilled when he quickly agreed to be a part of the Michigan Guest Bloggers on Michigan Quilts! Please visit his website and have a look around. He has numerous lectures and workshops, should your guild or organization be interested.
A couple weeks ago my friend Roderick Kiracofe was showing some of his wacky antique quilts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, an afternoon lecture, and he asked me to help hold up the quilts while he spoke. It was a pleasure, of course, but what I did not know was that we were going to be in front of the largest quilt I have seen for a while, a big quilt. It was coordinated by Allison Smith, an artist who is doing a residency at the museum right now and creating lots of cool, community oriented stuff. The quilt was based on an early Quaker quilt, and was made by a group of 35 people. Pretty amazing stuff. You can read about her here: http://www.sfmoma.org/events/series/1325About a week later I was in South Carolina and doing my one-man quilt musical show, “Joe the Quilter,” when I mentioned that I would rather see some old quilts than see a new quilt shop. So my hostess Vickie Perry arranged to take me out to the country to visit her mother Margaret’s quilting group, The Saluda County Quilters. They were quite excited to have a visitor from California, so they had created a huge pot-luck lunch with several casseroles, several salads, turkey and stuffing, chocolate cake, sweet potato pie, tea and bread and on and on. Oh, it was great. Anyway, after lunch we looked at a bunch of quilts and I showed them how I quilt in a frame like they use. Here are some of my new friends:
I loved this string four patch quilt, a sort of scrap Indian Hatchet quilt. Lots of wonderful quilts in South Carolina.
www.joethequilter.com
