Today I am writing to you from Louisville Kentucky, where I’ve been attend the AQSG annual seminar (American Quilt Study Group). I am pleasantly surprised at how many people I know at this event! My focus tends to be more on contemporary quilts, and this group has historically focused more on antique/vintage/historic quilts. However as I get older and this group is studying quilts overlapping with my own story, it has become more relevant to me. For instance today I attended a presentation about a quilt that was made in the Seventies – each block made by a different woman – addressing a variety of women’s issues of the day. As you can imagine, many of those issues are still with us today. I graduated from high school in 1976 so this quilt made by a group of unidentified women, really spoke to me.
I was delighted to visit with museum directors, quilt collectors, quilt historians, magazine publishers and authors at this event. Tonight I sat next to Teresa Duryea Wong, author of one of our most popular books this summer – “Sewing & Survival: Native American Quilts 1880-2022“. I do appreciate those who put in the time to study a topic, and put it all down in a book or magazine, to share with the rest of us. Perhaps you are like me – I am just a sponge for learning new things – especially about quilts! So it is quite delicious to take a deep dive into another tributary of this constantly flowing art and craft that we love so dearly. In the Show-and-Tell tonight, we all marveled at the vintage quilt next to the beautiful reproduction quilt that had an extra flourish of appliqued flowers and leaves around the border. (You can see these 2 Carolina Lily quilts, and others from this event, on my personal Facebook page.)
After I shared my quilt “Stardust Mothers” on the cover of the German magazine ‘Patchwork Professional’, we received requests to stock the magazine. That shipment of limited copies from Germany just arrived yesterday, and if you snap up a copy, be sure to check out the lovely article about my artwork and our company. Don’t read German? You can use Google Translate on your smartphone to translate! This is the magazine that refers to me as “Powerfrau” on the cover, which tickles me pink. I have formally studied 6 languages in my lifetime, and German was the first one. I was a summer exchange student to Germany when I was 15. In Hong Kong (when I studied Cantonese) my room-mate was a German-speaking Austrian couture patternmaker, who was the NYC patternmaker for Halston, the Hong Kong head patternmaker for Oscar de la Renta, and other big name designers in the 70s and 80s. She had a Bernina but wouldn’t let me touch it – ha! Took me 25 years to get my first Bernina but it was worth the wait. I hope you also have a machine that you love, and I hope you have time to sew this weekend!
sharing your love for fabric,
Luana and Paul
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Travel/Quilt Calendar:
Sept 28-30 – AQSG Seminar – Louisville, KY
Oct 27 – Nov 3 – Quilt Market/Festival – Houston TX
(Artist Speaker in “Women’s Voices” exhibit on Thurs Nov 2)
