Twelve Quilts of Christmas 2022

Mary Elizabeth Kinch is currently posting her tenth annual series of blog posts ‘Twelve Quilts of Christmas’, this year featuring circle quilts. 

This year I am celebrating quilts with circles by design. Circles represent unity, wholeness, a sense of completion, and the cycle of time. Even though quilts with circle designs can often be very energetic, drawing you in to the design, I find they can also provide a sense of peace visually. I hope you enjoy this year’s selection. Y’all know I sooooo believe that we have so much to learn from antique quilts!

You will easily find the previous years of ‘Twelve Quilts of Christmas’ in the Archives links on the blog. 

The series is also available on Instagram @maryelizabethkinch and her Facebook page Mary Elizabeth Kinch Quilts.

A treat to pore over during the holiday break.

Ten years of ‘Twelve Quilts of Christmas’

 Mary Elizabeth Kinch is currently posting her tenth annual series of blog posts ‘Twelve Quilts of Christmas’, this year featuring Welsh Quilts. 

‘… If I had a favourite genre of quilts, they are it.  Welsh Quilts are for me the epitome of what I call “Quilting with Abandon”.  Welsh quilters boldly manifested their distinctive designs with fearless exuberance, not feeling bound to fastidious, precisely drafted, and exacting executions in their work.  Instead they embraced their own individuality and let it shine in quilts that reflected their character through their stitches.’

You will easily find the previous nine years of ‘Twelve Quilts of Christmas’ in the Archives links on the blog. 

The series is also available on Instagram @maryelizabethkinch and her Facebook page Mary Elizabeth Kinch Quilts (although the current series does not appear to be on the Facebook page).

A treat to pore over during the holiday break.

Reading, viewing, listening ...

https://youtu.be/jmbDaCGu8Hw

Kaffe Fassett discussing his quilts at 2021 Festival of Quilts, with Natasha McCarty.

‘Studio Spades’ is a series of posts about textile artists’ work spaces produced once or twice a week by Fibre Arts Australia. You can subscribe to receive an email alert each time a post is made. Alternatively you can simply read the posts at the website. There is currently an archive of fourteen entries:

https://www.fibrearts.net.au/studiospaces

It’s an interesting insight into how and where the artists work, and what they regard as essential to their practice.

Greg Lauren and the Gee’s Bend Quilters crafted wearable Americana

In our era of hyperfast consumption, Greg Lauren has a zeal for patience. His slow-made approach to reconstruction finds new life for otherwise unwanted scraps and textiles, a time-consuming process that undermines the typical more-more-more industry mentality.  

So, Lauren's partnership with the Gee's Bend Quilters feels like the designer both paying his dues and paying forward the renown garnered by his own designs.  Jake Silberi, Highsnobiety, 16 October 2021

 

How Singer Won the Sewing Machine War

The Singer Sewing Machine changed the way America manufactured textiles, but the invention itself was less important than the company’s innovative business … Alex Palmer, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 July 2015

 

Artist Bisa Butler on creating new narratives through portrait quilts

Artist Bisa Butler has been called a modern-day Griot – but instead of using words to tell stories, she uses stitches and cloth. Her quilts have graced the covers of magazines and she created the striking illustration for the soon-to-be-released book "Unbound," the memoir of activist and Me Too movement founder Tarana Burke. Nancy Chen reports.

CBS This Morning, 4 September 2021

Bisa Butler: Portraits
Erica Warren (Editor), et al, Yale University Press, 2020

Bisa Butler (b. 1973) is an American artist who creates arresting and psychologically nuanced portraits composed entirely of vibrantly colored and patterned fabrics that she cuts, layers, and stitches together. Often depicting scenes from African American life and history, Butler invites viewers to invest in the lives of the people she represents while simultaneously expanding art-historical narratives about American quiltmaking. Situating her interdisciplinary work within the broader history of textiles, photography, and contemporary art, contributions by a group of scholars—and entries by the artist herself—illuminate Butler’s approach to color, use of African-print fabrics, and wide-ranging sources of inspiration. Offering an in-depth exploration of one of America's most innovative contemporary artists, this volume will serve as a primary resource that both introduces Butler’s work and establishes a scholarly foundation for future research. 

Quilt NSW Ruby Challenge 2021

Congratulations to Quilt NSW on leading and celebrating the NSW quilting community for 40 years, especially these last two difficult pandemic years. We are looking forward to seeing the virtual 2021 Sydney Quilt Show later this week, and the ‘in person’ event in 2022. 

From today’s Quilt NSW meeting, here is the link to view the online gallery of 2021 Ruby challenge quilts and winners:

https://quiltnsw.com/exhibitions/challenge

Congratulations to the prize winners. First prize is a BERNINA sewing machine sponsored by Bernina Australia .

FIRST PRIZE: Star Ruby by Judith Docksey
SECOND PRIZE: Wishful Thinking by Wendy Nutt
THIRD PRIZE: About Ruby by Suzanne Aubrun
VIEWERS CHOICE: Untitled by Grace Widders
JUDGES’ COMMENDATION: Ruby Resilience by Di Jobbins

At today's Zoom meeting, the committee announced the challenge theme for 2022 - Celebrate!

Reading, viewing ...

Photo by cottonbro from Pexel

As the largest quilt show in Europe, The Festival of Quilts held in Birmingham requires a lot of judges, giving us a substantial gallery of Judges’ Choice quilts - 38 at our early morning count. Enjoy!

The Judge’s Choice Awards are an opportunity for each judge to choose a quilt that speaks to them – that makes them smile, or tugs at their heart-strings or that simply stands out as “special” to them. The judges are asked not choose category winners, but otherwise they were free to choose any quilt in the show that they deemed as their favourite in the competition.

Just One Quilt (films) is a series of online videos, in which British quilter and sewer Jenni Smith talk to a quilter about one quilt they have made. There are more than thirty videos  available at the moment. Jenni teaches both garment sewing and quilting, with some courses available online. You can also follow her on Facebook and Instagram.


Giant quilt captures snapshot of time during Queensland's coronavirus lockdown
Jessica Hinchliffe, ABC Radio Brisbane, 10 July 2020

A callout by ABC Radio Brisbane Breakfast attracted 200 handmade blocks from across the state, each depicting the story of the maker's life in lockdown.

The blocks were stitched together by members of Queensland Spinners, Weavers and Fibre Artists (QSWFA) — a mammoth task which took more than 108 hours — into the official Queensland Quarantine Quilt ...

Stitches in time: how global crises can be measured in material
University of New England, 11 August 2020

When a global crisis hits, women throughout history have mobilised to hand-make some of the supplies most in demand. A UNE History Masters student says COVID-19 is no different - and this time it's masks and scrubs. 

... She found that sewing bees and circles have promoted a degree of social cohesiveness during wars, in pandemics and at times of political upheaval in Australia's history. During World War I, committees managed patriotic sewing groups that met in school or church halls to make soldiers' uniforms, and linens and medical supplies for hospitals. In the midst of the Spanish influenza epidemic, Red Cross volunteers sewed masks and gowns for infected soldiers returning from the war. Women again volunteered to sew and darn for soldiers in World War II, and to make quilts for those serving overseas.

Several weeks ago we posted about Lisa Walton's Quilt Stories Playlist, on You Tube, where she interviews an award winning quilt in-depth about one of their quilts. Lisa  has added a number of new interviews to her playlist, to introduce you to new quilters and the way they work.

'Remember'

Each year QuiltNSW holds a challenge. The quilts are premiered at the Annual General Meeting and then form part of a travelling suitcase exhibition. 

The theme for the 2017 challenge is 'Remember'. Awards were announced at the 2017 Annual General Meeting yesterday, and can now be viewed online.

Stalled?

If you have the odd stalled project (and who doesn't?) this article might help you to give it a kick-along ...

Getting back together with your UFO

Mary Kate Karr-Petras, Quilters Newsletter Blog, 26 May 2016
A couple of weekends ago, having just completed the pieced backing for a queen-size quilt and faced with the prospect of then basting said quilt, or maybe finishing marking and basting a twin-size quilt top, or perhaps marking and basting a throw-size quilt top (are you sensing a pattern here?), I took the easy way out: I pulled an even older UFO out of the closet and decided to work on it instead ...

The Rajah Quilt revisited: video free online this week only

This episode of the (US) Quilt Show, featuring Australian quilter and designer Lesse Siegele, designer of their Block of the Month for 2016, will be freely available online for just this week.

The BOM is Lesse's Rajah Quilt Revisited. More information about the block of the month, with links to kits or to the pattern only is in this blog post from The Quilt Show.

• National Gallery of Australia page on the Rajah Quilt 1841
• Quilt patterns by Lesse Siegele are available for purchase here.

Cotton + Steel: new blog + 5 free patterns

Cotton + Steel, a company of five young designers burst onto the fabric scene a year ago, with a popular collection of individually designed but coordinating quilting cotton, manufactured and marketed by RJR Fabrics.

They have since branched out into a variety of fabrics including some for garment making, and home decor.  Their (northern) Spring 2015 collection is just arriving in local quilting shops, and quilters are enjoying them as much as the first collection.

To celebrate their second year, Cotton + Steel have launched a blog, with a free quilt pattern to download from each of the designers - the accompanying quilts are made up in the new fabric collections.

Some modern Christmas quilts (2014)

A post of modern Christmas quilt links is now customary here, having been very popular with readers for the last three years, so here is our fourth annual selection from this year's blog surfing:

Mini Trees Quilt, Crazy Mom Quilts

Christmas Tree blocks, Quilt Matters

Christmas tree Skirt in July, Freshly Pieced

Christmas table runner, Sewcial Stash

Fair Isle Christmas quilt, Freshly Pieced

The Hood (Christmas tree skirt), Fresh Lemons

Quilted Christmas Tree Tutorial (No Sew) - Fabric Tree, Carly Nicole Elliotte

From the Quilters Guild of NSW

The Quilters Guild of NSW has announced the winners of its 'Mini Modern Challenge' and posted a gallery of all the entries via its blog, Template Free.

Read about the Guild's 'Red and White' themed category for the 2015 Sydney Quilt Show here.

Sydney Quilt Show 2015

17th - 21st June 2015
Glebe Island

Entry form and key dates

Canberra Quilters 2013 Members Exhibition - photos

Those Canberra Quilters are very organised - more than 50 photos from their exhibition this last weekend are already online, and both the photos and the quilts are a visual feast:

Members exhibition and Special Award winners

Thank you for sharing them us!

Craftsy

Just in case anyone has been too busy actually making quilts to discover the  Craftsy website yet, a visit is recommended - you will find online patterns, projects, workshops and courses in many crafty fields, including patchwork and quilting, and a blog.

While some are free, most charge a very reasonable fee, and there are regular 'sale' periods, when you can purchase online events at significant discounts. You will find some very familiar names there.

• Craftsy's quilting patterns,projects, workshops and courses are here

Liberty sightings

Red Pepper Quilts, a widely appreciated Melbourne based quilter's blog, recently featured a simply beautiful quilt made from the Liberty Lifestyle - Bloomsbury Gardens range, using Robert Kaufman Pure Organic Solid in White as a perfect foil in an uncomplicated nine-patch design.  Even if you are not a particular fan of Liberty fabrics, do take a look.

At about the same time, Erica Spinks posted a link to this Liberty Craft Blog post about making a Liberty flower quilt on her Creative Dabbling Facebook page. From there, a very short surf takes you to the Liberty Blog's fabric pages, with this post introducing the new spring summer 2013 tana lawn collection. Very nice.

Modern Christmas quilts 2012

Modern Christmas Tree Quilts, posted here just before Christmas 2011  has been very popular with readers, and has had an increasing number of viewers over the last couple of weeks, as the holiday season rapidly approaches again.

Here are some more modern Christmas quilts that have appeared on the web since that post, perhaps in time for a quick project actually in time for Christmas this year?

Christmas in July Christmas Tree Quilt (a free pattern is supplied)

Christmas Tree Quilt (GenX Quilters)

Christmas Tree Quilt - Fat Quarterly Magazine

Christmas Tree Table Runners (A Quilting Blog)

Modern Simple Christmas Quilt (K-Ro's Secret Blog)

A Cherry Christmas Quilt (Red Pepper Quilts)

Urban Holiday (Sew Kind of Wonderful)

And these Christmas quilts were displayed in the Fairholme Quilters Exhibition 2012:

Noelle Sona's Christmas Tree Skirt 

Elaine Bright's Christmas Tree Skirt 

Miriam Jones's Christmas Quilt

Bloggers Quilt Festival: Fall 2012

It's time for Bloggers Quilt Festival, Fall 2012.  Amy's Creative Side has for several year hosted popular online bloggers' festival to coincide with the spring and fall International Quilt Markets and Quilt Festivals in the US.  The fall event coincides with the huge Market/Festival in Houston, Texas.

It is an opportunity to see and read about many, many quilts - blogging quilters are invited to link a post about one quilt, and the numbers linked can be expected to climb to many hundreds before the 'linky' closes on 31st October. You might be tempted to l;ink a post yourself.

A number of awards, prize draws and other activities form part of the Festival fun ... you need to scroll down towards the bottom of the page to see the thumbnails of the linked quilts, and if you don't want to miss any, check back over the next few days as more are added.  They will remain online for future viewing - hours of fun, ideas and enlightenment.

Of course as each link takes you to a quilters' blog, it is quite likely that you will find yourself following up individual bloggers you haven't discovered before, and before you know it, your blog reading list will be renewed and expanded ...

Here is the link to get started, and the button in the right hand column will take you there as this post moves down our current screen.

Happy reading and viewing!

Australia Wide Three: Fairfield City Museum and Gallery

Ozquilt Network Incorporated is a national organisation for art quilters and those interested in art quilts.

Australia Wide Three 
an Ozquilt members only juried exhibition

4 October to 24 November 2012 
Fairfield City Museum and Gallery 
Cnr. Oxford Street and The Horsley Drive, Smithfield

Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday 10am - 4pm

The quilts will then tour until 30 June 2014. The official opening will be at 2pm on 13 October with artists' talks at 1-1.45pm. To coincide with the official opening, an online gallery of all 34 quilts will be displayed on the Ozquilt website from 13 October.

Until then, you can see the two previous exhibitions in this series online:
Australia Wide Two online
Australia Wide One online

AMQA 2012 award winners online

A gallery of the award winners at the Australasian Machine Quilters Association Show held in Adelaide last weekend is now online.

As you would expect the quilting is seriously stunning, and the images are excellent.

The judges, Nola Pearce, Helen Godden and Kerrie-Anne Riles are profiled here.

Young champion quilters

A little peek at Michaela's quilt

Speaking of young quilters, what were you doing when you were 14?  Chances are, it was not winning awards for your quilts. Generation Q magazine recently published online 2 blog posts about  Michaela Little (15) and Elizabeth Roach (14), ',,, award-winning quilters who already know how to rock a rotary cutter and stitch a steady quarter-inch.'

• Michaela Little

• Elizabeth Roach

Their youthful energy is delightfully obvious from the photos - most of us at Fairholme probably shouldn't aspire to get down on the floor with our quilts like Micheala, for our Show and Tell photos ...

How old were you when you started quilting?

Indigo Gives America the Blues - online exhibition

A current exhibition at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska, Indigo Gives America the Blues, is also available in an online edition.

The exhibition combines information about the numerous chemical processes that have been developed over centuries to bring indigo dyes and cloth together successfully, with a timeline illustrated by a variety of quilts.  You can click on every image for a large, detailed view.

• More casual photos from the Indigo exhibition in this Facebook album from the museum