by Amy Milne | Jul 11, 2019 | Go Tell It at the Quilt Show!
The photo at right, taken by Dayna Lee on September 18, 1990, accompanied an article by Linda Roach for the 1992 Louisiana Folklife Festival booklet. Roach is Director of the School of Literature and Language at Louisiana Tech University and director of the Louisiana Quilt Documentation project. It’s been almost thirty years since this photo was taken, and group quilting is still practiced and enjoyed amongst today’s quilters. In many ways, the notion and practice has expanded. Quilters can now toggle between working virtually through online communities and coming together in person for collaboration, classes or shows. At the 2014 International Quilt Festival, the Quilt Alliance documented seven members of such a group called the Amazing Eight. The friends, who hail from Mississippi, Texas, Missouri, Iowa, Ohio, Illinois and Minnesota, met via a popular community forum hosted by The Quilt Show.com. In 2009, the group of virtual friends made plans to meet in person at Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas. At the show they met for dinner and enthusiastically started discussing the idea of making a quilt together. Inspired by that first dinner gathering, the group made two collaborative quilts. In 2014, their third collaborative quilt, “Amazing Aztec–Nicolor Dream Quilt” won first place in the Group Quilt category in the Quilts: A World of Beauty Judged Show at Quilt Festival. Seven members of the group shared their story about the quilt at Quilt Festival by recording a Go Tell It at the Quilt Show! video: Karen Fitzpatrick, Mary Holman, Wanda Myers, Cindy Neville, Carol Moellers, Dana Lynch and Mary Kay Runyan. (The eighth Amazing member is Bridget Lilja.) We’re proud to capture the stories of quilt makers and quilt lovers where they gather through the Go Tell It! project. We encourage everyone with a quilt to document, preserve and share the story of that quilt before it fades away. Instructions for making your own DIY Go Tell It! video can be found on our website here. Click on thumbnails below to view each video. …
by Amy Milne | Jun 14, 2019 | Alliance Quilt Contests, Jigsaw puzzles
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. Be sure to sign up for our blog notifications, so that you don’t miss any of the upcoming puzzles. Up and Away by Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill This week’s puzzle spotlights a quilt titled Up and Away made by Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill of Woodbridge, CT for the 2016 Quilt Alliance contest and auction, “Playing Favorites.” Materials: Cotton Fabric, Cotton Thread, Cotton Batting. Techniques: Foundation Paper Piecing, Domestic Machine Quilted. Artist’s Statement I designed and produced Up and Away using one of my favorite piecing techniques–foundation paper piecing. I love paper piecing because I can design and execute precise design elements. All of my paper piecing designs are created in Adobe Illustrator. I also love testing out new designs on a small scale before producing them larger. This challenge was the perfect opportunity to prototype a new design! Sheri’s quilt won Judge’s Choice (Mark Lipinski) and Honorable Mention (awarded by Quilt Alliance members). Judge Mark Lipinski’s comments: This entry is an original paper-pieced composition, a drifting hot air balloon, with an intentional modern design sensibility. On first impression, the simple templates and pieced colors jump off of the solid white background, drawing me in. I found the overall impact of the work fresh and clean. The shapes within the balloon widen and grow, from slivers of lime green (representing the balloon’s flame) through various blues and finally to deep red- and blue-toned purples, giving the small quilt both heft and dimension. I thought the artist’s fabric choices thoughtful and effective—primarily solid colors with just the slightest bit of minimalistic patterned fabric tossed into the mix. The quilting is simple but efficient, made up of clean and clear straight lines that accent the shapes within the balloon, contrasted with the slightly wavy lines quilted in the background. I really appreciated the white binding the designer used, as almost any other color would have felt heavy and constraining. 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…
by Amy Milne | Jun 13, 2019 | Go Tell It at the Quilt Show!, QSOS
Here at the Quilt Alliance, one of the best parts of our jobs is hearing from people who have incredible quilt stories to share. Often, these stories are about the quilts they have made–stories straight from the maker about the joy and work of quiltmaking. But we also love hearing stories about how quilts have impacted communities. One of the reasons the Quilt Alliance founded the Go Tell It at the Quilt Show! project in 2012 was to capture the stories happening all around us that did not quite fit the mold of our Quilters’ S.O.S. – Save Our Stories (QSOS) oral history project. QSOS was launched in 1999 to record the history of today’s quiltmakers in their own voice. Interviewees were invited by volunteers to share a broad picture of their life as a quiltmaker in a 30-40 minute interview recorded on audio cassette or digital audio. In the twenty years since QSOS was founded, over 1,200 interviews were documented and are now archived in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. A small sample of the collection is now available with transcripts, indexed descriptions and full audio here: qsos.quiltalliance.org/gallery. With support from the quilting community, the entire QSOS collection will be available for listening, searching and browsing on the new site by the end of 2020. Find out how you can sponsor a QSOS interview and ensure its timely transitioned to the new site. In contrast, Go Tell It! is a video documentation project designed to capture the stories of quilt lovers where they gather. Because one does not need to be a quiltmaker to participate in this project, we have been able to gather stories about quilts from family members, collectors, guilds, historians, curators, industry leaders and people who own and love quilts. “Tellers” are sometimes the maker of the quilt they share in their video recording, but just as often, the telling is done by someone else connected to the quilt. The age, style, genre, purpose, size, and origin of the quilts shared in Go Tell It! videos run the gamut from antique crazy quilts to award-winning modern quilts to quilts made for social causes. At QuiltCon 2017, Quilt Alliance staffer Emma Parker recorded three Go Tell It! videos that featured three members of the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild talking about their Quilts for Pulse project. At QuiltCon 2016 in Savannah, Georgia, Sarah Lauzon, Jodi Peterman and Sharleen Jespersen each stood in front of the Quilts for Pulse exhibit and told the story of how their guild went about collecting blocks, quilt tops and finished quilts to comfort and support those affected by the tragic shooting at the Pulse Nightclub on June 16, 2016 in Orlando, Florida. Unlike most Go Tell It! videos, these three describe a collective effort – the story of 1,800 quilts, instead of one. The Quilt Alliance was proud to be able to document, preserve and share the stories of the Quilts for Pulse project, and we invite other guilds and groups undertaking community projects, large and small, to consider recording their stories with our DIY Go Tell It! guidelines here. Click on the thumbnails below to switch videos. …
by Amy Milne | May 17, 2019 | Jigsaw puzzles
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. Be sure to sign up for our blog notifications, so that you don’t miss any of the upcoming puzzles. A China Sky by Dana Zurzolo This week’s puzzle spotlights a quilt titled A China Sky made by Dana Zurzolo for the 2010 Quilt Alliance contest and auction, “New from Old.” Materials and techniques: hand-stitched, quilted, colored with oil-based pencils, fabric markers and thread. Vintage fabrics, prequilted backing, fused flowers. Artist’s Statement My quilt, “A China Sky,” is inspired by a recent trip to China. The red tiled roofs, buildings, trees and sky are drawn and inked onto the fabric using fabric markers and colored pencils. The grandmother’s flower garden blocks and the deep red thai selvage used for the binding are from vintage scraps I have had for years. 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…
by Amy Milne | Apr 13, 2019 | Jigsaw puzzles
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. Be sure to sign up for our blog notifications, so that you don’t miss any of the upcoming puzzles. Off The Top of My Head by Valli Schiller This week’s puzzle spotlights a quilt titled Off The Top of My Head made by Valli Schiller of Naperville, Illinois for the first annual Quilt Alliance contest and auction, “Put a Roof Over Our Head” in 2007. Artist’s Statement Sometimes ideas come faster than I can capture them in a quilt. Wouldn’t it be grand to have a roof over my head to keep the bright ideas from disappearing into the clouds? 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…
