Bonnie Lee Hale Leman (September 28, 1926 — September 4, 2010) was the founder of Quilter's Newsletter Magazine, the first quilting-focused magazine in the United States. She was also one of the first female magazine publishers in the country and was inducted into the Quilters Hall of Fame in 1982.

Early life and education

She was born September 28, 1926, in

Purdin, Missouri Purdin is a city in northwest Linn County, Missouri, United States. The population was 141 at the 2020 census. History Purdin was platted in 1873. The community was named for its founder, Allen W. Purdin. A post office called Purdin has been in ...

. Her parents were Rex and Laura Hale, and she had one brother, Roy. As a child, she was considered a good student and athlete. Bonnie Leman left home at the age of 16 to attend

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. She graduated in 1947, at the age of 19, earning a degree in

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with a minor in English. After graduating, she taught English and home economics to junior high students in Shannon City, Iowa and

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, and received a teaching certificate while working. However, she found she did not enjoy her second teaching post, so she moved to

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, Colorado with her brother. There, she worked as a waitress, then taught herself

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from a book at the

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so that she could work as a secretary, and worked her way up to a production manager position at an electrical manufacturing company. She then moved to

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

and worked as a secretary at the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

before moving back to Denver to be nearer to her parents. She then began pursuing a teaching degree at the

University of Denver The University of Denver (DU) is a private research university in Denver, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1864, it has an enrollment of approximately 5,700 undergraduate students and 7,200 graduate students. It is classified among "R1: D ...

. In 1954, she met her husband, George Leman, in the teaching master's program there, and they were married later that same year.

''Quilter's Newsletter Magazine''

In 1968, the Lemans started a mail-order business selling quilting templates, so that Bonnie could stay home with their children while also earning income to supplement George's teacher's salary. The templates they sold were reproduced from the collection of Kansas City Star quilt patterns that Bonnie inherited from her mother after she died. After her mother's death, she discovered that her family had a history of quilting, and she became very interested in the craft. The first edition of ''Quilter's Newsletter'' was published by the

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on September 21, 1969. Leman composed it on a manual typewriter. Through the magazine, she helped revive and foster an appreciation of

quilting Quilting is the process of joining a minimum of three layers of textile, fabric together either through stitching manually using a Sewing needle, needle and yarn, thread, or mechanically with a sewing machine or specialised longarm quilting ...

as an active and modern art form, while informing readers of quilting history. The publication is credited for kickstarting the North American quilt revival in the 1970s, around the time of the

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. ''Quilter's Newsletter'' was an important platform for contemporary quilters, such as Mary Alice Barton, Jinny Beyer, Sue Reno, and Grace Snyder, and helped quilters connect and build organizations such as the Women of Color Quilters Network. It garnered international praise and had a readership of more than 200,000 subscribers in over 100 countries. Writers for the magazine included Cuesta Benberry,

Barbara Brackman Barbara Brackman (born July 6, 1945) is a quilter, quilt historian and author. Barbara has written numerous books on quilting during the Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or c ...

, and Jennifer Chiaverini. The magazine ceased publication in late 2016, citing economic reasons caused by a changing market.

Other work

In addition to her work on the magazine, Leman was also a freelance writer. She wrote and published books and other publications on the subject of quilt making. She traveled much of the world in the course of her career, and contributed to the growth of the quilt making art in many countries.

Books

* Quick and Easy Quilting (1972), * Patchwork Sampler Quilt, Intermediate & Advanced Lessons in Patchwork (1979) * Log Cabin Quilts (1980), * Taking the Math Out of Making Patchwork Quilts (1981), * Patchwork Sampler Legacy Quilt: Intermediate and Advanced Lesson in Patchwork (1984), – co-author * Hands All Around: Quilts From Many Nations (1987), – co-author * Quilts: Visions of the World (1988), * Choice Scrap Quilts (1994),

Personal life

George Leman died in 1986. Bonnie Leman retired in 1996, and her daughter Mary Austin took over running Quilter's Newsletter Magazine. Leman died in

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on September 4, 2010, at the age of 83, and was survived by 7 children.

References

External links

Quilter's Newsletter Magazine - Official Site

– via the

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by Internet Archive, an American nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California. Launched for public access in 2001, the service allows users to go "back in ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leman, Bonnie 1926 births 2010 deaths 20th-century American women educators 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women American art writers American magazine founders American magazine publishers (people) American women company founders American women magazine editors Deaths in Colorado Park University alumni People from Linn County, Missouri Quilting Schoolteachers from Missouri University of Denver alumni Writers from Colorado American women art historians Textile historians