OLD-FASHIONED QUILTING MEETS THE FUTURE

Chatting is part of the fun in the quilting session that Bambi Robinson attends once a month.

The small group "pretty much amounts to an old-fashioned quilting bee," Robinson said.

Make that old-fashioned with a few twists. Individual projects are the norm during their monthly gatherings and the membership is of wide range in age and interest.

Plus, said Robinson, who holds a doctorate degree and is a professor of philosophy at Southeast Missouri State University, "My quilt group tends to talk about the Internet a lot."

As Robinson and friends illustrate, traditional quilting is meshing seamlessly with the future.

"Modern technology has entered the old-fashioned world," said Jane Stodghill, who, along with Robinson, is a member of the River Heritage Quilters' Guild. The guild also meets monthly.

Recent innovations may account, at least in part, for what Stodghill sees as the revitalization of quilting. The River Heritage Quilters' Guild, some 110 members strong, has seen tremendous growth, much of it in the last two years, Stodghill said.

One of the attractions of quilting, local enthusiasts point out, is there is room for all. Preference, technique and style range from traditional to avant garde and any combination thereof.

Robinson of Cape Girardeau and fellow quilting-guild-member Lissa Holdgraf of Jackson enjoy the more traditional methods of quilting.

"I would much prefer to quilt by hand than to quilt by machine," said Robinson, who particularly likes to apply applique techniques within her quilting. "I use it to piece, but that's about it," she said of her sewing machine.

Holdgraf, who will complete a hand-quilting class this week at The Sewing Basket on William Street, hails from generations of quilters. She prefers piecing by hand and is on her way to learning the next steps. "I taught myself how to piece, but I've never quilted the whole thing," she said during a pause in instruction last week.

By whatever method, successful quilting calls for "good technical skills and an eye for color and design," said Judy Robinson, instructor for the class Holdgraf is attending. "It's hard to produce a really great piece without having the construction skills behind you."

Learning those skills can be accomplished via several means, said the former home economics teacher who instructs on a variety of quilting topics. "Just like children in school, we learn by different ways; some by reading, hearing, some by seeing and doing," Judy Robinson said.

Judy Robinson and Bambi Robinson are not related, though they share a kinship through their enjoyment of quilting.

For Bambi Robinson quilting was an extension to the list of handiwork she already enjoyed. Upon her mother's suggestion that she make a quilt, she recalled, "I wound up going through quilt books, looking at pictures; I went to a quilt store, they taught me the minimal I needed to know and I got hooked."

In the ensuing eight years, Dr. Robinson has been both student and instructor in quilting classes.

Judy Robinson is also involved in quilting education from a variety of perspectives. She leads a users-support group for people who use home computers in quilting design.

"Computer quilting design programs are really hot," she said. With a computer-quilting-design program, a home computer and a printer, quilting design takes on fascinating possibilities.

"You can choose blocks, colors, fabrics, you can even design your own fabric," said Judy Robinson, who also uses a computerized sewing machine. "You can put your ideas on paper. It helps to have a visual picture of where you think you're heading with your quilt."

Judy Robinson also uses the internet almost daily in her quilting pursuits. "There are hundreds of web sites on quilting," she said. "It's a changing field; there are some real forerunners among the professional quilters that are trying more things and coming up with new ideas."

"People still think of a bed quilt when they think of quilts; but there's so much more going on," she said.

Stodghill, like so many quilters and non-quilters alike, was reared watching her mother quilt. But it wasn't until about six years ago that she decided to take up the craft. "I felt like it was a heritage that I needed to pick up, a heritage I didn't want to lose," she said.

Through many means and methods quilting is a continuation.

"I always wanted to do this," said Anne Lorraine Simpson of Sikeston, as she traced a pattern during Judy Robinson's hand-quilting class. "I have a brand new grand daughter; I've decided I'm going to take the time."