Creative Nudge – A Group Effort

Quilters are an eclectic bunch. They are fiercely independent, and can spend hours alone with needle and thread, creating their own personal vision expressed in color and fabric.

On the other hand we quilters are incredibly social animals! Our quilt festivals bring thousands of patchwork-freaks to gatherings that are a lovefest of people who are cut from the same cloth so to speak. Just about any quilter can walk into a room full of quilters and immediately strike up a conversation and a friendship.

Today I went to a quilt show that was a marvelous expression of both the individual quilter, and the group quilter. The Capitol Quilt Show is a showcase for the talents of Colorado quilters, and is hosted and organized by the Colorado Quilting Council. (CQC) The show runs through August 19, and has 270 beautiful quilts hanging throughout the Colorado Capital Building in downtown Denver.

As I walked through the building, marveling at the way the quilts were hung on 3 levels, I couldn't help but gasp at what a massive group effort this represents….and yet in the end each quilt is a poignant expression of one quilter stitching their own unique ideas. Strong willed individuals with a vision, working together to create something greater than the sum of its parts. We quilters could teach those DC politicians a lesson or two about working together for the greater good!

One of the great things about participating in a group effort like this, is the inspiration of the looming DEADLINE. I know I find it hard to get motivated on a project unless there is a deadline. I mean, really, these days there are always a million other projects and emergencies that can shove a project aside, without the virtual cattle-prod of an exhibit deadline. One reason I like to read quilt magazines is so I can keep up-to-date on show deadlines. There are so many exhibitions going on all around our country, all year long, and indeed all around the world.

International exhibits are drawing more and more entries from overseas, and it just shows how much smaller our world has become. It is very exciting to see quilts from around the world, when I go to the quilt show in Houston in October each year. American quilts are shown enthusiastically at the Tokyo Quilt Festival, just as we love to see the Japanese quilts in Houston.

Urban quilters, rural quilters, fiber artists, traditional patchwork practitioners, machine quilters and hand-quilters…we come together to admire each others' work and dream of our next big project. Then we join with others and put on a group show. It is Utopia! Fortunately today there is more acceptance of the infinite variety of techniques, than there was 20 years ago. Today the "Quilt Police" have less sway over the amount of joy we experience when making a beautiful quilt. Some of the biggest prize-winning quilts have done so because…they broke the rules and created a whole new category of quilts in the process.

It is just a few weeks until I travel to the quilt festival in Birmingham UK. This is the largest quilt festival in Europe, and I am looking forward to viewing and reviewing a smorgasbord of international quilts at the show.

A year from now I'll be leading a tour of quilters to Ireland, and we'll spend a few days at the first Irish Quilt Festival! (in between our tour of the Irish countryside and its history)

Whether quilters gather to view each others' work in the US, Japan, Australia, Europe or South America, we all speak the same language….and we all wish we could peek at the back of the quilts when the white-gloved lady is looking the other way!