[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Calling All Makers! This year at Quilters Take Manhattan, all attendees are invited to wear garments or accessories featuring fabric in the Quilters Take Manhattan Collection, pictured below. To enter, you must have a ticket to attend the Main Event of Quilters Take Manhattan. The QTM Main Event at the Fashion Institute of Technology will be Saturday, September 16 from 9-5. Why a Fashion Challenge? The Fashion Institute of Technology, in the heart of Manhattan’s Garment District, has been our venue for Quilters Take Manhattan since we launched the event in 2011. So each year, we love including a little celebration of fashion, and the history of the garment industry in NYC. Check out QTM Add-On Events on Friday, September 15 at the FIT Museum and the Tenement Museum for more fashion and garment related history. One of the highlights for the QTM team is documenting what our attendees wear to the event. We’ve even chosen event colors some years. Since 2015, QTM volunteers have created their own aprons, accessories and other wearables using our own QTM logo fabric (swatches above and for sale here). We invite all QTM Main Event at FIT attendees to join us in the fun. Enter the QTM Fashion Challenge by creating an item (garment or accessory) to wear to QTM. All participants will get the chance to strut their wearable at the event, and prizes will be awarded by a panel of judges who work in the fashion industry (Dganit Avital (Patternmaker/Draper, Vera Wang), Deborah Kreiling (Design Development Director, Simplicity Creative Group), and Angelica McGregor (Associate Designer, Herman Kay). We will also let our audience choose a few special awards of their own. Prizes will be provided by our sponsors. How to Enter It’s easy! 1. Purchase your ticket to the QTM Main Event at FIT on Saturday, September 16 here. 2. Fill in the registration form here, so we’ll know how many people to expect at QTM. 3. Create a wearable or accessory that uses at least 50% QTM logo fabrics (five fabrics to choose from, found here). 4. Wear your design to QTM and be ready to share your creation. You’ll receive a special nametag with your entry number when you check in at FIT on September 16. Good luck! QTM Logo Fashions from 2015 and 2016: [huge_it_gallery id=”18″]…
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Add your voice to this contest! The Quilt Alliance has extended the deadline (now July 3, 2017) for its 11th annual quilt contest. This year’s theme is “Voices.” Artists are invited to share their opinions, memories, language, conversation and truths in the form of a 16” x 16” wall quilt. Help us document the state of quilting in 2017 and let your voice be heard. As part of our mission, the Quilt Alliance ensures the documentation and preservation of the stories of quilts and quiltmakers through our oral history projects. We value the human voice, as well as your voice expressed in cloth and thread. Everyone who makes quilts is encouraged to enter our annual contest regardless of their style or technique. Traditional, modern, art, longarm, hand quilting, applique, piecing are all welcomed and valued. Register for the Contest! For full information and registration, visit the Quilt Alliance website here. Registration is online. Finished quilts must be mailed to the Quilt Alliance office in Asheville, North Carolina with a postmark no later than July 3, 2017. The quilts will be exhibited on our website, and at 2017 Alliance events, including the Not Fade Away conference on July 15 in Herndon, Virginia. Other exhibition venues include the Quilters Take Manhattan fundraising event in New York City on September 19 and in the Alliance booth at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Nov. 1-4. All quilts will then be auctioned online in mid to late November to benefit the Quilt Alliance. All quilts will be labeled using StoryPatches. These special quilt labels have a QR code to link the quilt to its photo and documentation online. You can scan the label and instantly find out the artist’s name, artist’s statement and link to the artist’s website. The mission of the nonprofit Quilt Alliance is to document, preserve and share the stories of all types of quilters and every sort of quilt. The Alliance’s oral history projects, Q.S.O.S. and Go Tell It at the Quilt Show!, have recorded more than 1,200 stories of today’s quiltmakers. The Quilt Alliance helps quilters, quilt owners and groups like guilds and museums, record, archive and present the cultural heritage of quilting in America. Past Alliance contest quilts, left to right: Cover Us (2006) by Yvonne Porcella, Ode to Tamar (2009) by Allison Ann Aller, and Pineapple Log Cabin Renewed (2014) by Jane Hall. Contest Sponsors We are proud to announce that Handi Quilter Inc. will provide our top prizes. First, second and third place finishers will receive an HQ Stitch sewing machine (models 710, 510, and 210 respectively). Brenda Groelz, Director of Marketing and Education for the company says “At Handi Quilter, we give quilters the tools to make quilts that last. We applaud the mission of the Quilt Alliance to save the stories as well as the quilts. This contest allows quilters to further the Alliance mission, while also allowing quilters the opportunity to document and preserve their work in perpetuity.” Additional contest prizes contributed by these generous sponsors: Moda Fabrics, Aurifil, AccuQuilt, EZ Quilting, Simplicity Creative Group, and StoryPatches. View the complete “Voices” contest guidelines on the Quilt Alliance website here….
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] The 2015 Not Fade Away conference was held in Herndon, Virginia. The event was co-hosted by the Quilt Alliance and the Sacred Threads Exhibit. Marin Hanson, curator at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum, gave the keynote address, and invited several quilters, including eQuilter.com co-founder and president Luana Rubin to share their stories about making 100 Good Wishes quilts for their daughters. Watch Marin’s lecture on our Youtube channel here. Quilt Alliance member Frances Dowell did a great segment about the 2015 conference on her podcast, the Off Kilter Quilt. Find out about the 2017 Not Fade Away event here….
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] The 2017 Quilt Alliance contest is underway and we are receiving some lovely entries from longtime members and those new to the organization. Entries last year addressed the theme Playing Favorites and submissions featured favorite techniques, color palettes, concepts, materials and even favorite people and animals. This year’s contest theme is Voices and we are challenging our members to share their opinions, memories, language, conversation and truths in the form of a quilt. The 2016 Handi Quilter Grand Prize Winner was Margaret Cibulsky of Port Washington, New York. For her winning entry, “My Garden,” Margaret received her choice of either a HQ Sweet Sixteen sit-down longarm machine package or an HQ Simply Sixteen and Little Foot package from Handi Quilter, Inc. This year’s 1st through 3rd place winners will receive a HQ Stitch 710, 510 and 210 respectively. Past Quilt Alliance Contest winners (Grand Prize and 1st-3rd place winners) are ineligible for a period of 3 years to win 1st-3rd place awards in this year’s contest. For the 2017 contest, this includes 2014, 2015, 2016 contest winners. All past entrants are, however, eligible for Honorable Mention and Judge’s Choice awards. We asked Margaret to tell us about her quilting journey. In 2006, Cibulsky joined a quilting group in her Congregation who were making throw quilts for those in need of a lift. With basic skills under her belt, she was inspired her to make her first quilt. Cibulsky’s husband passed away in 2004, and the quilt was made of his clothing. She still considers this quilt, finished in 2010, to be her best. Cibulsky joined the NYC Metro Mod Guild around that time and has only missed a few meetings since. She is basically self-taught but she has learned from other guild members, from books and blogs. Cibulsky says although her first love was teaching, (32 years as a kindergarten and first grade teacher), designing and making quilts is her new passion, especially the process! Cibulsky sent us a look at how her 2017 Voices quilt was put together. [huge_it_gallery id=”16″]…
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Quilters Take Manhattan is the Quilt Alliance’s annual fundraising event held at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in the heart of the Garment District in New York City. Every September since 2011, quilt world stars like Marianne Fons, Denyse Schmidt, Jennifer Chiaverini, Hollis Chatelain, Amy Butler, Ricky Tims and Kaffe Fassett have shared their stories at our annual QTM event to support our cause of documenting, preserving and sharing the history of quilts and their makers. Last year’s speakers were Kaffe Fassett and Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi, and Mark Lipinski was interviewed for the Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories (QSOS) project by Marie Bostwick. Since we started our video project Go Tell It at the Quilt Show! in 2012, we have collected more than 300 recordings of “one person talking about one quilt in front of one camera for three minutes or less.” Live QSOS and Go Tell It! interviews have added a fun and sometimes emotional element to our annual QTM event. Here are recordings of Marianne Fons and Mark Lipinski from last year’s QTM.
And don’t forget, if you plan to attend this year’s QTM (September 15-17) featuring speakers Sherri Lynn Wood, Merikay Waldvogel, and a QSOS interview with Michael E. Cummings conducted by Dr. Carolyn L. Mazloomi, get your tickets soon. We expect to sell out! For more information and tickets, visit our website here….
