Don't let your quilt story fade away.
Quilt Alliance is a nonprofit 501c3 organization established in 1993 with a mission to document, preserve, and share our American quilt heritage by collecting the rich stories that historic and contemporary quilts, and their makers, tell about our nation’s diverse peoples and their communities.
In support of this mission, the Alliance brings together quilt makers and designers, the quilt industry, quilt scholars and teachers, and quilt collectors to further the following goals:
● to promote the understanding of the quilt as an important American grassroots art form
● to share stories and documentation about quilts with a broad public
● to educate Americans about the importance of documenting quilts and quiltmakers so that their stories will not be lost
In 1993, recognizing the need to centralize information about quilts and quiltmaking, four women joined forces to create Quilt Alliance. This project drew together Shelly Zegart and Eunice Ray of The Kentucky Quilt Project, and Karey Bresenhan and Nancy O’Bryant, corporate officers of Quilts, Inc. and founders of the non-profit Texas Quilt Search. With the establishment of The Alliance, the founders combined their shared dedication to quilts with their extensive experiences shaping the quilt industry and quilt scholarship in this country. In 1981 the Kentucky Quilt Project began to develop scholarship, publications, and exhibitions about quilts and their creators, jumpstarting the state quilt project movement. Quilts, Inc. has been the primary catalyst behind the development of the international quilt industry and has worked for more than 40 years to foster the public appreciation of contemporary and historic quilts around the world.
The Quilt Alliance’s founders soon gathered a distinguished group of quilt scholars, artists, experts, and enthusiasts to develop a vision for gathering, disseminating, and facilitating the interpretation of the great body of information about quilts and quiltmakers. The Alliance developed projects that tap into the full potential of quilts and inform the study and understanding of history, the arts, and culture.
In its short history, the Quilt Alliance has made significant progress toward its goals. It has launched a series of partnerships and projects that document, preserve, and share the stories of quilts and quiltmakers, including The Quilt Index, Quilters’ S.O.S.-Save Our Stories, Boxes Under the Bed™, Quilt Treasures, and Go Tell It at the Quilt Show! The Quilt Alliance has built on the enthusiasm and collaborative spirit of the late twentieth and twenty-first century quilt revival, drawing inspiration, leadership, and resources from the many individuals and organizations that have worked with quilts and quilt study for more than 30 years. Organizations such as the International Quilt Association, the American Quilter’s Society, the American Quilt Study Group, the National Quilting Association, state and regional quilt documentation projects, various grassroots guilds and associations, and others have developed a critical mass of interest, information, and resources that support the vision of Quilt Alliance.
0THOUSAND QUILTS DOCUMENTED
0HUNDRED STORIES
RECORDED
0TREASURES SAVED
0MILLION HAPPY QUILTERS