Sewing With Nancy

For this Nancy's Corner segment I'm putting away fabric, needles, and thread and making room for a guitar and banjo. Please welcome Marc Revenson, known as Lil' Rev, a folk singer whose songs include an ode to quilters everywhere. Hi, Nancy. Marc, it's good to have you here. Your music makes me happy, and the topic is quite interesting. You write a variety of tunes but you have a whole litany of quilter's music. That's right. I have a program called Scraps of Quilting Music that's songs, stories, poetry, lore, anecdotes kind of historical stuff. It's generally about a 70-minute program when I'm visiting quilt groups, guilds, expos and things of that nature. You've had some inspiration behind this topic. I did, yeah, I like to credit really two people. I like to credit my grandmother, Ida Revenson and I like to credit a friend of mine, Nina, in Milwaukee who really inspired the early stages of this program by inviting me to perform for her quilting guild. My grandma, I like to refer to her as a fiber artist an old-time fiber artist. She was doing needle point and crochet, and all kinds of different things a little bit of quilting. She passed on and I inherited her 500 spools of thread and her 10,000 buttons that I used to play with as a kid. So yeah, the subject matter was really quite easy especially when I thought about the crazy quilt and the patchwork quilt and a lot of the early traditional patterns, Pine Tree, Log Cabin, and that kind of stuff. In many ways, it reminded me of all the old-time music I was playing that had sort of these traditional names like "Turkey in the Straw," "Arkansas Traveler" and things like that. A lot of similarities can be drawn here. You're going to sing us a song called the "Magic Quilt." That's right, yep. I'll give you this in a nutshell. I'll just tell you it's inspired by all the good that quilters do by often working hundreds, if not thousands of hours on quilts only to then give them away to church raffles, auctions and homeless shelters, and all kinds of different things. That really inspired me. So, someone said Lil' Rev, there's got to be a place that's special for quilters when they leave this earth and I said, by golly there is, and I'm gonna write about it. There's a magic quilt up in the sky I'm a-gonna ride it by and by When my hands quit sewin' Well, it's there I'll soon be goin' Ride the magic quilt up in the sky May your stitches all run in a row May you quilt all the love you sew May you be a light in the darkest of the night Ride the magic quilt up in the sky May you always earn your fair share May you quilt like one who really cares May you never get the blues Or drop a loose pin in your shoes Ride the magic quilt up in the sky Here we go, now! There's a magic quilt up in the sky I'm a-gonna ride it by and by When my hands quit sewin' Well, it's there I'll soon be goin' Ride the magic quilt up in the sky May you give when others are in need May you learn to keep your karma clean May your heart be true With that red, white and blue And ride the magic quilt up in the sky And all those folks out there who love to watch you, Nancy I hope they're going to sing along with me this last time through! There's a magic quilt up in the sky I'm a-gonna ride it by and by When my hands quit sewin' Well, it's there I'll soon be goin' Ride the magic quilt up in the sky Excellent, excellent! That's so fun! You're going to sing us one more song as we wrap up this program. All right, I'd love to do that. Change out to your guitar. This last song just refers to the emotional connection to quilting and how it gets us through tough times. Blue are the days that I've seen Times, they were tough and so lean This old life, it seems like a dream Blue are the days that I've seen These are the colors of my quilt... As Marc is singing us off I'd like to thank Pam Mahshie for being our guest and of course, for Lil' Rev, for being with us today. For more information on anything Sewing with Nancy to go nancyzieman.com. You can re-watch this show. Click on Nancy's Corner to find out more about Lil' Rev who has this beautiful music behind us. As I like to close every show Thanks you for joining me. Bye for now. These are the colors of my quilt Painted by things that I've felt Golds and yellows And earth tones that mellow These are the colors of my quilt...