By Gail Scogin
After 30 years as a member of East Cobb Quilters’ Guild, Amanda Smallwood still enjoys the warm comradery within the guild and seeing the parade of quilts during Show and Tell. Amanda is known for her beautiful handwork, and has been described as having an incredible eye for color and design.
Amanda’s mother, a talented seamstress, taught her to sew clothing as well as to love good quality fabric. Her mother’s sister, Zelda, always one to try new crafts, inspired Amanda’s initial interest in quilting. In her early twenties, Amanda was mesmerized by the gorgeous cathedral window quilt Aunt Zelda was constructing. Although it was a challenging design for a beginner, Aunt Zelda taught Amanda how to put the fabric pieces together.
Some years later, Amanda read a local newspaper article featuring photographs of the quilts made by a resident of neighboring Milton. Intrigued, she soon enrolled in a “Block of the Month” class to learn the varied techniques for making a sampler quilt. She also joined a Bee Group―and met good friend, Lila Scott, who also served as technical editor for American Patchwork and Quilting magazine. At one point, Lila mentioned a job opening at Little Quilts in Marietta. Amanda ended up working part-time at the store and stayed throughout its entire 18-year run―teaching classes, helping customers select fabrics, and enjoying the family-like atmosphere.
Using a range of quilting techniques, Amanda’s style involves adapting and personalizing traditional quilt patterns. While the patterns serve as inspiration, she elaborates on them by focusing on the elements that interest her, putting her “own spin on them.” Having won awards at different shows, her quilts demonstrate an attention to detail along with a dedication to precise execution.
Amanda sees inspiration all around her―and can even wake up with a new idea to pursue. “I like to color outside the lines.” She studies the fabric, and “it tells me what it wants to do.” She uses her intuition to select a variety of fabrics and prints that go together – but that also manage to stand out and not get lost in the mix. Her grandson―a young man interested in sewing and upcycling clothes―recently commented on a Pickle Dish quilt design she’d completed. (Photo to the left.) He examined the arrangement of the fabric pieces for a long while and observed that the combination “makes your eye travel all around the quilt.”
As for naming her quilts―“the quilt tells you what it’s going to be. Sometimes the name comes to me based on what happened while I was working on it.” For example, when working on a Baltimore Album quilt, something else caught her attention―and she ended up changing the overall design and composition. The resulting quilt, named “I Saw a Squirrel and Got Distracted” was awarded “Best Hand Quilted” in the 2024 Georgia Celebrates Quilts show. This quilt is shown below left.
Amanda aims for her quilts to “talk to people” and “tell a little story.” For a granddaughter who had participated in dance for many years, she used fabrics representing the different dance costumes to make a graduation quilt that conveyed―a sense of movement along with the essence of her granddaughter’s personality, and her journey through many styles of dancing. Amanda is especially proud of the outcome, titled “Wanna Watch My Dance” which also won the Judge’s Recognition Award from Judge Lisa Schreck at the Guild’s 2024 show. A photo of this quilt is below on the right.
In a quilt gifted to another granddaughter, Amanda repurposed the flowery fabric from an heirloom dresser scarf. Sometimes, girls go through a dramatic and fractious phase, so, this quilt for Granddaughter Mary was named “Mary, Mary Quite Contrary, How Does Your Garden Grow?” As for what to name a small double wedding quilt with only five rings? “Tom Thumb Wedding,” of course.
Focusing on the techniques she enjoys, Amanda often has various stages of quilting projects going at once―applique, machine piecing, hand quilting, etc. For machine sewing, she mainly uses her Singer Featherweight. “It’s a friend. We get along really well, and it has a comforting sound when you sew.” Her preferred tools include―a Roxanne thimble and YLI thread for hand quilting; silk thread for applique; Aurifil thread for machine quilting; and wool batting.
Amanda enjoys taking care of her home and family and loves to be outdoors in nature. Folks may not know that she grew up on a farm in nearby Roswell, Georgia. At a time when so many of us have moved away from our place of origin, Amanda still lives on property adjacent to that farm, her childhood home, and has lived in the same house for the last 48 years.
Amanda’s advice to new (and not-so-new) quilters? Find what makes you happy, and be your own quilter. Don’t do something just because it’s popular; do what gives you joy.