Quilt Puzzle: Soul Sisters
Your Quilt Jigsaw Puzzle Tip: for best results, solve puzzle on this page on a desktop computer or laptop. If you are solving on a mobile device, click on the puzzle piece icon in the lower righthand corner to solve on the Jigsaw Planet website. Welcome to another quilt jigsaw puzzle from Quilt Alliance! The beautiful quilts in the puzzles have all been entries in past Quilt Alliance quilt contests. Soul Sisters by Jamie Fingal This month’s puzzle spotlights a quilt titled Soul Sisters made by Jamie Fingal of Orange, California for the 2011 Quilt Alliance contest and auction, Alliances: People, Patterns, Passion. Materials and process include:Commercial cottons and batiks fused, painted, free motion machine quilted. Buttons sewn on by hand. Artist’s Statement My closest friend and I often send each other e-mails that have “coffee break” in the subject line. It is our way to sit down at the computer with a cup of coffee, tea or even a glass of wine and read each others catch up news. What could be more fun that cups and saucers on our heads? Dedicated to women friends! About Quilt Alliance We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt Alliance. We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt…
read moreQuilt Puzzle: Princess Elsa Cat
Your Quilt Jigsaw Puzzle Tip: for best results, solve puzzle on this page on a desktop computer or laptop. If you are solving on a mobile device, click on the puzzle piece icon in the lower righthand corner to solve on the Jigsaw Planet website. Welcome to another quilt jigsaw puzzle from Quilt Alliance! The beautiful quilts in the puzzles have all been entries in past Quilt Alliance quilt contests. Princess Elsa Cat by Esther Muh This month’s puzzle spotlights a quilt titled Princess Elsa Cat made by Esther Muh of Albany, California for the 2015 Quilt Alliance contest and auction, Animals We Love. Materials and process include: Batik fabrics; fused applique; hand embroidery. Artist’s Statement I pieced and sewed the quilt, but the entire design of the quilt was conceived by my four year old daughter who loves cats (and princesses, and, of course, Elsa from “Frozen”). About Quilt Alliance We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt Alliance. We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt…
read moreQuilt Puzzle: Three Sisters
Your Quilt Jigsaw Puzzle Tip: for best results, solve puzzle on this page on a desktop computer or laptop. If you are solving on a mobile device, click on the puzzle piece icon in the lower righthand corner to solve on the Jigsaw Planet website. Welcome to another quilt jigsaw puzzle from Quilt Alliance! The beautiful quilts in the puzzles have all been entries in past Quilt Alliance quilt contests. Three Sisters by Alice Helms This month’s puzzle spotlights a quilt titled Three Sisters made by Alice Helms of Asheville, NC for the 2011 Quilt Alliance contest and auction, Alliances: People, Patterns, Passion. Batik fabrics; fused applique; hand embroidery. Artist’s Statement Three Sisters illustrates the Native American practice of growing corn, beans and squash together – a natural alliance. Corn provides a pole for bean vines to climb. Bean roots add nitrogen to the soil, and bean vines help stabilize the corn. Squash vines become a living mulch, preventing weeds and keeping the soil moist. Corn, beans and squash also complement one another nutritionally. I celebrate this simple, intuitive and life-sustaining tradition. About Quilt Alliance We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt Alliance. We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt…
read moreQuilt Puzzle: Twenty Things I Say
Your Quilt Jigsaw Puzzle Tip: for best results, solve puzzle on this page on a desktop computer or laptop. If you are solving on a mobile device, click on the puzzle piece icon in the lower righthand corner to solve on the Jigsaw Planet website. Welcome to another quilt jigsaw puzzle from Quilt Alliance! The beautiful quilts in the puzzles have all been entries in past Quilt Alliance quilt contests. 20 Things I Say by Pat Sloan This month’s puzzle spotlights a quilt titled 20 Things I Say made by Pat Sloan of Herndon, Virginia for the 2013 Quilt Alliance contest and auction, TWENTY, celebrating the Quilt Alliance’s 20th Anniversary. Fabric, thread and batting all cotton Artist’s Statement I’ve been a quilter for almost 20 years. That made me think about some fun sayings I like that really reflect what I think about my life as a quilter. “Make do”, “Sew Happy” and “I run with scissors” might just be my favorites. I hope as a quilter you take a risk, make it happen, and have fun with it! About Quilt Alliance We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt Alliance. We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt…
read moreQuilt Puzzle: The is Not An Amish Quilt
Your Quilt Jigsaw Puzzle Tip: for best results, solve puzzle on this page on a desktop computer or laptop. If you are solving on a mobile device, click on the puzzle piece icon in the lower righthand corner to solve on the Jigsaw Planet website. Welcome to another quilt jigsaw puzzle from Quilt Alliance! The beautiful quilts in the puzzles have all been entries in past Quilt Alliance quilt contests. This is Not an Amish Quilt by Janneken Smucker This month’s puzzle spotlights a quilt titled This is Not an Amish Quilt made by Janneken Smucker of Philadelphia, PA for the 2008 Quilt Alliance contest and auction, My Quilts/Our History. Based on traditional Amish Bars or Strema pattern; cotton fabrics, organic cotton batting, cotton thread, machine pieced, hand quilted. Artist’s Statement I make quilts. And I study them as an academic pursuit. These two practices parallel one another. I often turn to historic patchwork designs for inspiration; I find new ways of using old patterns by adapting them with unconventional fabrics and settings. Likewise, in my research about Amish quilts, I probe these objects by examining them within diverse contexts, drawing inspiration from scholars whose work established quilts as a legitimate scholarly pursuit. About Quilt Alliance We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt Alliance. We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt…
read moreRunning Stitch: Behind the Microphone
The Quilt Alliance released the third episode of Running Stitch, a QSOS Podcast this week. If you’re already a subscriber, then you know that the first three episodes focused on First Quilts with guest Victoria Findlay Wolfe, Quilts and Activism with Thomas Knauer, and Quilts and Difficult Times with Melanie Testa. Host Janneken Smucker selects audio clips from QSOS oral history interviews conducted between 1999-2017, and invites the interviewees back to talk about how their quilts and their lives have changed since they were last documented by project volunteers. With a collection of around 1,200 QSOS interviews, more than 600 Go Tell It! video recordings and 30 StoryBee interviews, the Alliance has an abundance of content to draw from, documentation that spans decades and includes quilters from almost every US state and representing most sub-genres of the quilting community. Janneken, a Professor of History at West Chester University, and Emma Parker, producer and QA Project Manager, set out to create a podcast in which quilts and quiltmaking serve as a lens to examine some of today’s most pressing issues, including activism, public health, politics, race, and the economy. Janneken uses storyboarding to sketch out each episode, schedules and conducts the interviews, and records narrative, transition and credit segments. Emma uses the storyboard to retrieve clips, edits the episode together, and builds the episode webpages. The podcast was made possible by our partners at the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History who recently completed the digitization of over 800 audio cassettes, the media of choice when QSOS was launched. In addition to digital audio, each interview is indexed with summaries, keywords and links. This important work, underwritten by individuals and businesses and a generous grant from the Robert and Ardis James Foundation, makes the collection infinitely more accessible and searchable for users. I have been fascinated by Janneken and Emma’s thorough and artful approach to working on Running Stitch and decided to turn the interview roles around and ask them a few questions about their work and their own podcast favorites. Janneken Q: You’ve been involved with the QA and the QSOS project since 2005 when you joined the QA board. Has doing this podcast changed your opinion about the value or utility of the QSOS collection to users? A: Working on Running Stitch reveals the depth and breadth of the QSOS collection. Now that we can search across interviews, thanks to the technology updates feasible through digitizing the collection and indexing it in OHMS (Oral History Metadata Synchronizer), we can discover hidden moments in interviews and find ways to put the interviews in conversation with one another. And as the episodes so far reveal, the interviews are extremely relevant to contemporary concerns that resonate well beyond quiltmaking. Running Stitch explores how quilts and quiltmaking relate to larger cultural issues, and this is only possible because of our archive of oral histories. Q: What are some of your favorite podcasts? A: I listen to way too many news and politics podcasts to get my fix of current events coverage, but in terms of more cultural fare, I recommend Wind of Change, which explores the rumor that the CIA wrote the song of that title which was a hit by the Scorpions, and proved pivotal in the waning years of the Cold War. I also like Slow Burn, produced by Slate, which used archival audio including oral histories as well as new interviews to explore historical topics, including Watergate and the Clinton impeachment. Similarly, Last Seen, produced by WBUR and the Boston Globe drew on historical and archival content to explore the unsolved art heist from the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum. Emma Q: Your training is in folklore, and in your job with the QA, you are producing this podcast, as well as audio oral history and video storytelling projects. Do you have a preference for either audio or video as a storytelling medium when it comes to quilts? A: That’s such a hard question! I think both audio and video have so much to offer, but in different ways. Because quilt stories often have at their heart an actual quilt, I always love to be able to see the quilt and hear someone talk about it at the same time. The interaction we get in Go Tell It at the Quilt Show videos between the “teller” and the quilt makes those videos especially powerful! I often get a special understanding of how someone feels about a quilt by the way they hold it as they talk, or how they turn all the way around to point out that one piece of appliqué they’re most proud of. That said, there’s something really special about hearing someone’s voice. I’m always surprised by just how much comes through an audio recording, whether it’s a just-a-little-bit-longer pause or a nervous giggle that suggests what’s not being said. Some of our QSOS interviews really do feel like you’re in the room with the interviewer, or on the quilt show floor where that story was recorded and I love that audio recordings let you imagine what was going on on the other side of the tape. Q: And what are some of your favorite podcasts? A: I have to admit that my podcast consumption has fallen off quite a bit now that my big daily commute for work is from the back of the house to the front! As you mentioned, I have an educational background in folklore and linguistics, so I find myself drawn to podcasts that investigate the quirks of everyday life and language. Three of my favorites in that genre are 99% Invisible, Every Little Thing, and Lexicon Valley. Recently covered topics include a deep dive on the design of the classic American mailbox with a flag, how they decided on the typeface on highway exit signs and an exhaustive history of the word ‘y’all’. I love this stuff! I think Running Stitch listeners might especially like a short podcast mini-series called Articles of Interest, which focuses on the history of clothing, including a whole episode about pockets. And of course, if you’re not listening to Quilt Alliance board president Frances O’Roark Dowell’s QuiltFiction and Off-Kilter Quilt podcasts, hop on those! Subscribe to Running Stitch, a QSOS Podcast at: Apple Podcasts – Spotify – Google…
read moreQuilt Puzzle: the Clothesline Quilt
Your Quilt Jigsaw Puzzle Tip: for best results, solve puzzle on this page on a desktop computer or laptop. If you are solving on a mobile device, click on the puzzle piece icon in the lower righthand corner to solve on the Jigsaw Planet website. Welcome to another quilt jigsaw puzzle from Quilt Alliance! The beautiful quilts in the puzzles have all been entries in past Quilt Alliance quilt contests. The Clothesline Quilt by Laura Jackson This month’s puzzle spotlights a quilt titled The Clothesline Quilt made by Laura Jackson of Wake Forrest, NC for the 2012 Quilt Alliance contest and auction, Home Is Where the Quilt Is. Cotton fabric, cotton thread, cotton batting, sheer fusible, double stick fusible; machine pieced, machine quilted, iron on qpplique, freezer paper pattern. Artist’s Statement The Clothesline Quilt was inspired by an alluring image of a home surrounded by red and green lettuce fields. The concepts of “home” and “quilt” spark an inkling of beauty, comfort and usefulness all intersecting in the image of a quilt swaying in the breeze. This piece expresses the joy and security of a home life where hard work in the soil and happy work with a needle and thread meet. About Quilt Alliance We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt Alliance. We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt…
read moreMeet a QA Member: Sandy Teepen
The Quilt Alliance membership includes some of the most interesting people in the quilt world! This series introduces and documents the rich stories and talents of our members. In this episode meet Sandy Teepen, an art quilter from Midtown Atlanta, Georgia. We first met Sandy at Quilters Take Manhattan, our biennial fundraiser in the Big Apple. She has been a passionate supporter of our mission ever since and we were eager to pay a virtual visit to her colorful home studio. Sandy went to art school and has a background in costume shop and theater, but motherhood delayed her creative career. After she and her late husband moved to Atlanta in 1982, she began taking classes as the Atlanta campus of the Savannah College of Art and Design and found her love for collage with paper and fabric–her gateway to quilting. Sandy is an ardent and confident marketer of her own work and has found success in working with an IT professional to help her enter shows and document her work. Follow Sandy on Facebook and Instagram, and visit her website to see more of her work and get updates on her upcoming one-woman show in 2021. We hope you enjoy this virtual visit with Sandy!
Begin or renew your Quilt Alliance membership today…. read moreQuilt Puzzle: UGH
Your Quilt Jigsaw Puzzle Tip: for best results, solve puzzle on this page on a desktop computer or laptop. If you are solving on a mobile device, click on the puzzle piece icon in the lower righthand corner to solve on the Jigsaw Planet website. Welcome to another quilt jigsaw puzzle from Quilt Alliance! The beautiful quilts in the puzzles have all been entries in past Quilt Alliance quilt contests. UGH by Earamichia Brown This month’s puzzle spotlights a quilt titled UGH made by Earamichia Brown of New York City, NY (now Texas) for the 2017 Quilt Alliance contest and auction, Voices. Fabric and Misty Fuse, raw edge appliqué and machine quilted. Artist’s Statement The title is often said under my breath or in my head. It seems to be happening a lot more the older I get. The voice that comes out can be a frustrated “I Got This”. In this comic book setting, you can imagine the superwoman having to drop what she is doing to handle the emergency of the day. For the Quilt Alliance Voices theme, I chose this because lately I have been required to rush in and “handle” things. Ugh is a new favorite word… and I got this is a now overused phrase. About Quilt Alliance We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt Alliance. We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt…
read moreQuilt Puzzle: Stories
Your Quilt Jigsaw Puzzle Tip: for best results, solve puzzle on this page on a desktop computer or laptop. If you are solving on a mobile device, click on the puzzle piece icon in the lower righthand corner to solve on the Jigsaw Planet website. Welcome to another quilt jigsaw puzzle from Quilt Alliance! The beautiful quilts in the puzzles have all been entries in past Quilt Alliance quilt contests. Stories by Sylvia Weir This month’s puzzle spotlights a quilt titled Stories made by Sylvia Weir of Beaumont, Texas for the 2012 Quilt Alliance contest and auction, Home Is Where the Quilt Is. Vintage machine pieced quilt top, applique and thread work, cottons/multitude of thread. Artist’s Statement There is a sort of quiet confidence and composure that exudes from those who have lived many years. Those eyes have seen sorrow and gladness, the hands have made meals and comforted those who wept. Home resides in each one of us and grows stronger with each passing year. About Quilt Alliance We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt Alliance. We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt…
read moreMeet a QA Member: Connie Kincius Griner
The Quilt Alliance membership includes some of the most interesting people in the quilt world! This series introduces and documents the rich stories and talents of our members. In this episode, meet Connie Kincius Griner, a quiltmaker and retired OB/GYN living in Burlington, North Carolina. We first documented Connie’s work at the International Quilt Festival in 2016. She recorded a Go Tell It at the Quilt Show! video with her quilt “View from the Microscope: Pickled Paramecium.” And at the 2017 QuiltCon in Savannah, Georgia, Connie recorded a second Go Tell It! in our booth about her quilt “Wrinkly, Irony.” . Connie is busy caring for her grandchildren at home these days with not much time for quilting, so she decided to draw from her collection (she’s quite prolific) for an outdoor quilt show. Since March 27 Connie has displayed a quilt (or two) outside her home each non-rainy day for neighbors and passersby to enjoy. She shared #35 on May 7. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram to see updates to the outdoor show and more of her work. We hope you enjoy this virtual visit with Connie! Begin or renew your Quilt Alliance membership today. …
read moreQuilt Puzzles for April
Your April Quilt Jigsaw Puzzles (3 this month!) Welcome to another group of quilt jigsaw puzzles from Quilt Alliance! The beautiful quilts in this month’s puzzles were all entries in the 2010 New From Old quilt contest and featured in this video, the first in our Label Love series.
Tip: for best results, solve the puzzles on a desktop computer or laptop. If you are solving on a mobile device, click on the puzzle piece icon in the lower righthand corner to solve on the Jigsaw Planet website. Grandmother’s Curtains by Star and Sophia Prim of Huntsville, Utah A combination of vintage, recycled and new cotton fabrics, wool felt, beads, hand applique, machine applique, hand-stitching, machine quilting. When my daughter was three and money was tight, I made her a simple dress out of some old vintage curtains. She loved it, and I loved seeing her in it, knowing that it cost nothing and I had given new life to something old. Looking out the window, you can see a little girl wearing her new spring dress made from the same fabric as grandma’s curtains. My New Sues by Kathy Guardia of Grottoes, Virginia Vintage feedsack fabric, my own handdyed fabrics with some commercial fabric – hand applique turned and raw edge – hand embroidery; machine quilted 20 years ago I found this treasure in the bottom of a cardboard box full of fabric purchased at an estate sale in Florida. A dingy plastic bag with one completed Sunbonnet Sue sewn on a stained dishtowel and about a dozen Sues cut out of vintage feed sack fabrics never finished. So I introduced the Vintage Sues to my hand dyed fabrics and a few commercial pieces to come up with My New Sues. Pink Basket 2010 by Mark Lipinski of Califon, New Jersey Vintage hand pieced basket block, ribbon and floss embellishment, completed with new fabrics. I found this vintage, hand-pieced, 1930’s pink basket block for $6 at an antique shop, The Rusty Rooster, during a teaching/lecture engagement for The Washington Stars Quilt Guild in Olympia, Washington in May 2010. Scheduled to lead a quilting retreat at the Thunder Bay Resort in Hillman, Michigan in June, I brought the block with me and with some support from my fellow retreaters (and in traditional quilt-making style), we managed to design and quilt this new block from the old. About Quilt Alliance We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt Alliance. Welcome to another quilt jigsaw puzzle from Quilt Alliance! The beautiful quilts in the puzzles have all been entries in past Quilt Alliance quilt contests. Be sure to sign up for our blog notifications, so that you don’t miss any of the upcoming puzzles. We rely on the generous support of donors and members like you to sustain our projects. If you support our mission of documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, join us by becoming a member or renewing your membership, making a donation, or learning how your business or corporation can become a supporter of the Quilt… read more