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Irmo, South Carolina, USA
All photos courtesy of Bonnie Hunter
My husband’s grandmother quilted. She lived to be 103. When Dave and I were first married, Grandma Hunter showed me how to piece a churn dash block. I used cardboard templates! There weren’t rotary cutters available then…this was 1982. I hand quilted the quilt and even put prairie point edging on it. My sister still has the quilt.
I live in South Carolina. I’ve been here for 3 years and I love it! There is so much history and heritage here.
I have a very supportive family! My husband Dave and my two sons, Jason and Jeff, have lived with my sewing and quilting since the beginning! I was sewing and buying fabric before the boys were even conceived! I think they came into this world knowing that the car makes automatic stops at the fabric store. I remember times when the boys would cry because I pulled into the parking lot and they knew where mom was going!
I have a wonderful golden retriever named Buddy. I also have 3 cats who give me company as I sew. They don’t try to claim my projects, but they watch everything I do. Occasionally they will be found on top of piles of fabric as if they are guarding it or warming it up for me…I’m not exactly sure what they think! I wish I could read their minds!
I love to hike with the dog in the forest. The state forest is not far from here and there are miles and miles of great walking trails. I also like to read, ride bikes and I love the ocean. Anything with yarn or fabric always caught my eye. I started to sew early on…and my mom’s cousin taught me to crochet when I was about 10. When I was in junior high and high school, macramé was popular and I remember making things like plant hangers and choker necklaces with beads.
I have a large bonus room above my garage that is my studio. I also do a lot of hand work sitting on the couch in front of the TV in the evenings!
My machine for every day sewing and piecing is a Bernina 1080. It is a workhorse and I will keep it for as long as it will run! I don’t need a lot of fancy stitches or embroidery units. That just isn’t the direction my quilting goes. I mostly use the straight stitch and the zigzag and occasionally the machine buttonhole for machine appliqué, but that is about it.
I am very much inspired by “utility” quilts from the 1800’s and early 1900’s. I love scrap bag quilts, and quilts where you can tell the quilter was doing her best just making do with what she had. Quilts where not all the blocks are identical in fabric choice and placement…quilts that show an independent spirit. I love quilts that look used and worn….that is the life of a quilt! If it was used, you know it was loved and memories were made in the using of that quilt. I also love Amish quilts, but the ones that draw me tend to be on the scrappy “use it up” side as well. I like things to surprise me and leave me wondering why the maker did things the way she did.
I am very inspired by Gwen Marston and Roberta Horton. They broke me out of the mold of having to do everything “perfect perfect matchy matchy”. I also enjoy Mimi Dietrich and Judy Martin.
Piecing and quilting are my favorite parts of the quilting process. I hand quilt quite a few of my own projects… I like hand quilting while watching TV in the evenings. The other ones are machine quilted. Sometimes I like the quilting to be fast, other times it is worth it to take it slow and hand quilt. It depends on the quilt.
I have been hand piecing a hexagon medallion for a few years now. It’s an on again off again project. I like how portable it is, and it is a pattern I would never dare to machine piece with all those set in seams.
My favorite quilt books are books of antique quilts, sometimes published by state museums. These books don’t contain patterns, but I love looking at the quilts, and reading the stories of the makers and their lives.
Too many to list! I usually have something in the hand quilting process, something in the hand piecing process, something in the machine piecing process (or many somethings!!) and tops waiting to be quilted.
I don’t think I dare count the number of UFOs though they have whittled down considerably in the past couple years. I’ve really worked on taming them, or reworking them into other projects so that I could finish them. I have abandoned UFOs….I’ve Funny story? Well, I’m sure other longarm quilters can relate to this! I was just learning to use the longarm and I had marked a border with one of those plastic stencils. Later on I was quilting along and heard “thunk thunk thunk”….I couldn’t figure out what that sound was! When I went back to check, I had advanced the quilt, and the plastic stencil rolled into the inside of the quilt and I had quilted through it. I had to do quite a bit of un-quilting to get that stencil out of there! The stencil still has those stitch marks to this day and it makes me laugh when I see it.
I think all of life is a process, just like quilting is. We are given these pieces to put together as we see fit, and everyone is going to see them and put them together differently. Sometimes it is easy and the pieces just fit. Other times you have to go back and redo. Sometimes we have to completely alter our original plan because the path is going to take us a different direction and the quilt comes out completely different than we first envisioned it. It is still rewarding and it is still beautiful in its own way.
Too many to choose!
I made a random sampler from all these orphan blocks that have been collected over the years. Some were leftovers from other projects, others were trial and error blocks, some rejects, etc. I pieced them all into the quilt center just randomly, all different sizes of blocks. I am working on piecing the border. I am freestyle piecing words around the border that say “Bonnie likes to play with blocks. Little pieces make her happy, most of all she likes them scrappy!” And then it will have my name and date, or place and date…not sure yet. It’s a lot of letters for a lot of words, but it is going to be fun when it’s done.
The baby quilt I made when my mom was expecting my youngest sister…My sister was born in November, but the previous June (5 months earlier) I had given birth to my first child. My baby, Heather, was born with complications (trisomy 13) and only lived 2 ½ weeks. It was very difficult having been so young and losing my first child (my only daughter) and here I was struggling with my relationship with my mother….who was having her 8th child. I wondered why God would give her 8 healthy children, and why he would take my only one. At that age and time I didn’t know what else would be brought forth in my life, and it was very difficult. Making that quilt for Mary before she was born helped me through a lot of struggle and heartache.
I am in a few different groups. They are all evening groups because daytime meetings just don’t work with my schedule. I am currently the charity quilt chairperson. I’ve been doing this for 3 years and it’s about time for someone else to take over! The other two groups I belong to are both each about an hour away, so I don’t get there as often.
I start out usually with a block idea that I like. I will use block base or EQ5 for ideas, and also inspiration from antique quilts that I see. When I get piles of blocks made I will start playing with the layout and let the quilt go until it says it is done. Very rarely do I make anything exactly like a pattern in any given book.
I’ve always loved scrappy quilts. Over the years my color preferences have changed a bit and I have found ways to use my scraps better through organization, pre-cutting, and storing scraps in certain sizes of strips, squares, rectangles, or triangles. Kind of like storing building blocks. It is easy for me to just sit and start to sew, instead of having to dig through scraps of odd sizes, sorting, pressing, cutting, before you can even begin to sew.
SCRAPPY! Usually towards the rich dark colors. I’m not much of a pastel person and I prefer 1800’s style fabrics. I’m not really drawn in as much by 1930’s color palettes.
I like timeless fabrics. Things that are not going to look outdated 5 years down the road. I try to avoid the “why did I ever buy that??” kind of fabric. I am not into novelty or conversation prints at all, though I have friends who are and I love seeing the quilts they make with them.
I don’t have one! I’ve spent the last 2 years working basically only from my stash, and I haven’t made a dent yet! Instead of spending time shopping, I’m spending time quilting, and actually getting more done.
I buy fabric by the feel of the fabric and by the colors that call to me. I don’t have a specific designer or line or manufacturer that I prefer. I don’t hand dye, I’d rather be sewing!
“The Best Things in Life are Quilted!” Bonnie Hunter (this has been my slogan for over 10 years now)
I think you have to realize when you enter a judged show, everyone is going to have opinions. Every show will have different judges and different judges are going to judge according to their own tastes, likes and dislikes. So you have to keep an open mind and not let the judging kill your passion for your quilts. Judging can be really stiff in the traditional categories, (PERFECTION, PERFECTION, PERFECTION!) yet the art quilt categories can get away with anything! I have entered shows and won plenty of ribbons, but when reading the comments like “binding color does not enhance overall quilt appearance” I have to keep in mind that it is MY quilt. I made it for me with what called to me…I wasn’t making it to impress any judge. I know quilters who plan quilts specifically to enter and win, and that is fine for them. But that is not my goal with my quilts. I make quilts that call to me and that fill my dreams and ideas, and I show them, regardless of what a judge is going to say or think or make comments on. If you need a judge’s positive comments to build your self esteem, then you are not quilting simply because of your love for quilting. The reward for me comes from the quilting process itself, not because of a judge’s comments or ribbons for best of show.
Yes! My best friend is a quilter! Her name is Lucy and she lives in Haarlem in the Netherlands. I am planning a trip to visit her soon and am really looking forward to the time with her.
Accurate cutting and an accurate seam allowance can save a lot of heartache!
I use a seam guide up against my ¼” piecing foot to ensure that my seams are consistent and this has helped my piecing tremendously!
I have been longarm quilting for the public for 10 years. My business has followed me through 3 moves in 3 different states! I offer several different styles and categories of quilting to my customers. I enjoy developing a personal piecer/quilter partnership with my clients to be sure the quilt is quilted to fulfill their desires for their top. I offer everything from simple meandering, to pantograph designs, to custom work, to heirloom quilting with fanciful feathers and dense, detailed filler designs and trapunto work.
Organize yourself! If you can’t find what you need, you will waste time searching for it. Organize your stash, your tools, your books, and most of all your scraps to get the most out of them that you can. Your scraps cost you just as much per yard as the original fabric that they came from!
So who do you want for the next Real Women Quilt Featured Quilter?!! I'm always open to your suggestions.
and let me know. |
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