eQuilter Blog

Sunday I got home from Quilt National at the Dairy Barn in Athens Ohio. (Monday I put Sophie on a plane to Italy – her high school orchestra is touring and performing in 4 European countries!) Now I have some time to contemplate the trends I saw at Quilt National.

This year was the 40th anniversary of this event. This biennial features 84 of the best of contemporary quilts, selected from 700 quilts submitted by 375 artists. For many quilt artists, getting into this show is considered a peak in their career. Imagine being a juror for this event! The quilts in the exhibit came from 26 US states and 6 countries…but the entries came from 19 countries and 40 US states. It is no wonder some artists are very emotional when they are accepted into this event.

We have a few copies left of the 2019 catalog that I hand-carried back. We have more on the way. I also wanted to point out that past catalogs become collector editions, and many savvy art quilters have many catalogs going back several years. We still have some copies of the 2017 catalog, and the Nancy Crow curated Mastery exhibit from the Dairy Barn.

Marianne Williamson is one of the artists in this year’s Quilt National. No, this is not the Marianne Williamson who is running for president! Thanks to Marianne, we have carried the hand-dyed Oliver Twist threads from the UK. I have hand-carried these precious threads home from the Birmingham show in the past. I saw a lot of couching and hand-stitched big embroidery stitches this year, so these types of threads (Including our solid and variegated Sashiko Threads) are in big demand by savvy stitchers.

After the Artist Talk on Saturday morning, where each artist had a couple minutes to talk about their piece, many of us were commenting on one big trend: so many of the quilts had a message about what is going on in the world today. The show was generally more abstract art, but the artist statements spoke bluntly about topics like climate change, women’s issues, migrants and the Wall. One grandmother artist told me – “My daughter told me I shouldn’t speak out – but I have to say something with my art.” So we would walk around the exhibit, studying the art, reading the artist statement, then looking back at the artwork with new eyes.

Solids, Hand-Dyesand Ombres are the fabrics of choice for many of these artists. What I find so fascinating is how Modern Quilting is blending with Contemporary (Art) Quilting to create a new kind of art quilt that is bold, jazzy, graphic, clean but nuanced. If you pick up any of these books above, you will see what I mean.

If you are in Ohio this summer, be sure to stop by to see this exhibit!

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul

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Luana’s Travel Calendar:
June 11-15 – Quilt Canada Ottawa – (lecture Fri 6/14)
July 18-22 – Sacred Threads & Not Fade Away (VA & DC)
July 30 – Aug 6 – Birmingham UK – Festival of Quilts

eQuilter Classroom:
June 1 – Charity Sewing Group – RSVP
July 11-14, 2019 – Cindy Lohbeck – Shibori, Ice-Dyeing and Ombre Dyeing – Almost FULL
Sept 13-15 – Cas Holmes – FRCQ Workshop
Oct 8-10 – Jacqueline de Jonge – eQuilter Classroom