When you first join a group there are always a handful of people who make an immediate impression on you. Cindy Conner was one of those people for me in CSQ. She makes all of her quilts out of recycled clothing or other fabrics and she shares lots of stories about her sustainable garden and lifestyle. I was impressed from the beginning.
Today we will meet Cindy and get a peek into her sewing room.
If you live in Hanover (or the area), how many
generations of your family have lived here and how did they come to settle
here? If you moved here, where are you from and what brought you here?
My husband and I are from Ohio, having met
and married while students at Ohio State University. He got a job in Columbus,
Ohio as a computer programmer after graduation in 1973. We moved to Richmond in
1977 as a result of a new job offer and bought our 5 acre farm near Ashland in
1984.
When you were young what did you plan to be when you
grew up and what happened with those plans?
Before I was even old
enough to go to school I would tell people that I wanted to be a mother when I
grew up. (Jarod
was born 10 months after we were married, followed by Travis four years later,
then Betsy after another four years, followed by Luke five years after Betsy.) By the time I went to college I had decided
to major in home economics and become an extension agent so that I could help
people become more productive at home. I have used everything I ever learned in
college and expanded on it. I never became an extension agent, but I do help
people be more productive at home.
What do you do when you aren’t quilting?
You can usually find me in
the garden. I learned to garden organically because I wanted a healthy family
and that interest has grown tremendously. Beginning in 1992 I sold vegetables
for 10 years, helped start the Ashland Farmers Market in 1999 and taught at J.
Sargeant Reynolds from 1999-2010, establishing the sustainable agriculture
program there. I’ve produced two garden DVDs with the help of filmmaker son
Luke. We offer them for sale through our website at www.HomeplaceEarth.com. I write a blog at www.HomeplaceEarth.wordpress.com which is free continuing education for folks
following my work. I’ve written a book—Grow
a Sustainable Diet—that will be out in March 2014. It is being published by
New Society Publishers.
What hobbies or activities do you do other than
quilting? Where do you do them? How did you get involved with them?
In my exploration of fiber
I began growing cotton in my garden. I’ve written about it at http://homeplaceearth.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/grow-and-spin-cotton/ . Presently
when I speak at sustainable agriculture events I wear a quilted vest. I use it
to represent diversity. Also, it is distinctive and no one else has one like
it, making me easily recognizable. I’m learning to spin my homegrown cotton on
a hand spindle. I still need to learn to weave. My goal is to make a vest from
my homegrown cotton that I’ll wear when I give presentations.
As a child what was your nickname and how did you get
it? Do people still call you by that name?
No nickname, although I
have a twin sister (not identical in any way) named Sandie. People would mix up
our names, even though I was taller and we didn’t look alike. I was in college
before I was only known as Cindy.
What saying best describes how you like to live your
life?
My current favorite saying
is “Life isn’t about waiting for the
storm to pass, but how to dance in the rain”.
Show us a photo (or photos) of where you create.
I have been making changes in my
sewing space over the course of the past year and am excited to talk about it.
In 1988 I made this cabinet myself by putting a top on my childhood desk. The
cabinet opens up to one space behind the two left panels (which fold open). My
sewing machine was stored there. Behind the right panel are shelves to hold
patterns and such. I would open the cabinet doors and bring my sewing machine
forward to sew. There is a hole in the back of the cabinet for cords for the
electric and foot pedal to connect to the machine. My notions and supplies were
stored in the drawers. This cabinet has been all over the house in the years
since 1988. When it was in a corner of the kitchen cookbooks were on the top
shelf.
Once our children were all out of
the house, I realized that I could actually have the large bedroom (last one
vacated) for a sewing room, but I still needed space for guests. There were two
bulky twin beds there that were originally bunk beds that my husband built for
our boys in 1981. I had fabric stored in plastic bins under both. I took those beds
out and painted an old twin bed that had been in our family almost forever. I
wanted to keep the extra long mattress left from our 6’4” son, so I bought extra
long bed rails for that bed. I bought a pop-up trundle that slides underneath.
We put the little bookcase on wheels so that it can be easily moved to bring
out the trundle. The quilt on that bed is the one I made for our grandson in
2010. Although he’ll probably take it eventually, he has chosen to leave it at
our house for now, maybe because it establishes a place for him here. He’s 16
now.
I had eliminated all the storage
space I had under the beds, so I found this large used blue/tan cabinet at the Boaz
and Ruth thrift store in Richmond. It is a cabinet with shelves that fits over
a chest of drawers. The top drawer is skinny and just right for storing my
quilting rulers in. To put things in proper perspective, the ceiling in that
room is only 7’ high. Until I get my stash down, I still have fabric stored in bins.
Actually, some of that is old clothes intended for quilts and some is denim.
There is a quilt frame that I’ve acquired and I’m beginning to accumulate
spinning/weaving things that need a resting place. You can see those things
under the window to the right in that photo.
My homemade sewing cabinet is gone
now and my sewing machine is in the closet. The wooden boxes under that window
contain fabric and batting. (There is another closet to the left of the wooden
boxes.) When we were working on the garden plan video in 2009 Luke needed
studio space for his computer while he did the film work. He didn’t need to
live here, just his computer and equipment did. We made this closet over for
that purpose and I kept in mind that maybe someday I could put my sewing
machine there. I got him to take the last of his things out of there this
spring and moved my sewing machine in. The sewing machine can be moved back and
table extension folded down so the closet door can be closed, turning the room
back into a guest room.
I’ve had the dress form since
about 1976, but it was stashed away in a closet for years. I brought my
grandmother’s shadow box down from the attic. I’ve had it for many years but
had no place to put it. I have photos of my grandparents and other little odds
and ends that are meaningful to me on the shelves. Now if I could only find
time to sew.
Show us a photo of the quilt that’s on your bed right
now.
I
made this quilt using lap quilting methods-one square foot at a time. It took
two years from 1995-97. It has polyester batting which is thinner than the
cotton filled quilt I made, so this one is on the bed through the summer. I
call it Summer Sunshine. I had a lot of yellow cotton fabric to use up and this
project accomplished that. I had mostly blue scraps so you might notice that
alternate rows of nine patches all have blue in them. The rest of the rows are
mixed colors. That evenly spaced the blue in the quilt. Other than the yellow,
it is made of scraps left from my sewing projects over many, many years. I made
clothes for the children when they were growing up and still make my own
clothes. I started to quilt to use up the fabric leftovers. (Our bedroom is larger than it
appears in that photo. The head of the bed is in an alcove.)
What quilt is your least favorite quilt. Not necessarily
the ugliest but the one that you liked the least or struggled with the most or
just plain hated making. Why did you choose this one? Do
you have a photo of it?
Everything
has value to me and is special, so I don’t have a least favorite.
What is your all time favorite quilt and why? Do you
have a photo of it?
I
like so many things I usually don’t play favorites. However, I’m partial to my
grandson’s quilt that’s on the bed in the sewing room.
