Fifty years ago, a quilt-making revival swept the nation, the effects of which are still felt today. What was it like in 1970, when there was no quilt industry, no quilt shops or guilds, no rotary cutter? How did a generation of young women go on to build a $4bn industry and a community 18 million strong? Lecturing together for the first time in more than five years, quilt world leaders Marianne and Mary Fons look at the trajectory, the triumphs, the failures, and the current state of the American quilt 50 years after “the big bang.”