Today’s guest is Sam Hunter of Hunters Design Studio. Living in Portland, Oregon, Sam is a pattern designer, teacher and mother. She also wrote Quilt Talk, a paper piecing alphabet book for Stash Books.
At Quilt Con, I ran into Sam. We sat by the windows outside of the main vendor hall and chatted for a bit. I knew of her “We Are $ew Worth It” series and wanted to talk to her about the issue of gender in quilting. After realizing we could probably talk for hours and hours, we enjoyed our introductory discussion and vowed to keep in touch after the show. Our podcast conversation is really the tip of the discussion iceberg we can explore. We start with her creative journey and put on our Star Wars nerd hats to talk about her Rey and BB-8 quilt pattern (see below).
We delve into the value of handmade work and talk about how it’s not enough to “just be an artist”. She talks about the room there is in the industry along with how a study of the history of art can teach us about the importance of derivative art. Not one to shy away from the things she values, we talk about the importance of taking care of herself and her experiences being perceived as “old” in the quilting community. As I expected, our conversation spanned many topics and was passionate. You can hear the emotions behind the words and even a few swear words! I hope you enjoy the discussion.
Notes from the Show:
Born For This by Chris Guillebeau
Maddie Kartay of Bad Ass Quilters Society
Molli Sparkles – No Value Does Not Equal Free post
My podcast with Liesl Gibson
Mindy Kaling episode with Off Camera by Sam Jones
Violet Craft (my podcast with her)
Sponsors:
This episode is sponsored by Fat Quarter Shop and Project 48 Quilt. Please consider supporting my fantastic sponsors!
How to Listen:
To listen to the podcast, there are four options.
1) Click on the graphic at the beginning of this post, which will take you to Podbean. You can click on the play button there.
2) You can also click play on the player below.
3) Download and save the episode through the link below.
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Comments 4
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The program featuring Sam Hunter is probably the best podcast I’ve ever heard about the subject of quilting. Sam is open, honest, informative and real. Everything she said was good to hear. Yea! for her. I am going to listen a second time even. I wish her the best.
And thank you Sandi for having her on a show. Your podcast is great! I love it.
Author
Annie,
Thank you for listening! I’ve re-listed to Sam’s advice several times and always take away another important nugget of information. I’m glad she can impart some of that information to you too.
Sandi
As a nerd quilter, loving Sam’s patterns (just bought 2 X star wars and the tardis) and loved the wee little stitches too.
And they spark so many other ideas.
Thanks