Since 1993, the Quilt Alliance has been committed to documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of quilts and quiltmakers. We care about keeping quiltmaking alive, but also celebrating its history. We shared this passion with Quilters Newsletter Magazine, the grandmother of all quilt magazines, in print since Bonnie Leman began the publication as a black and white newsletter produced out of her home in 1969. We at the Quilt Alliance were saddened to hear that F+W, the magazine’s parent company, announced that the magazine would cease publication. I admittedly don’t read all the quilt magazines. But QNM was one I paid attention to in large part because it cared about quilt history. It regularly published features that celebrated quilt heritage, quilt documentation projects, museum exhibitions, and summaries of quilt scholarship. The magazine, like the Quilt Alliance, perceived the stories of the quilts and quiltmakers of the past as integral to quiltmaking’s future. I was lucky enough to publish a few times in QNM, and always felt honored that a popular publication with large and faithful readership would feature articles by a historian like me. And that’s part of QNM’s legacy. QNM is part of our shared quilt history which the Quilt Alliance aims to preserve. The magazine was instrumental in the late twentieth-century quilt revival, not just through its publication, but through its outreach into the burgeoning world of quilt enthusiasts and its leadership in the quilt industry. For example, QNM sent a touring Quiltmobile around the country in 1976, exhibiting quilts and teaching quilting, which no doubt helped fuel the quiltmaking excitement surrounding the American Bicentennial (we here at the Quilt Alliance are inspired by this… we’ve had our eye out for a camper to drive around the country recording quilt stories). These stories are worth saving, but we can’t do it alone. In 2002, Quilt Treasures—a partner project of the Quilt Alliance, Michigan State University Museum, and Matrix, the Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences at MSU—interviewed Bonnie Leman. Our partners created a mini-documentary and web portrait, but the technology supporting this presentation is out of date. watch an excerpt of Bonnie recalling the origins of Quilters Newsletter from her Quilt Treasures portrait.[space height=”10″]
[space height=”10″] Like Quilt Treasures, our oral history project Quilters’ S.O.S. – Save Our Stories (QSOS) is now in need of conversion to a new platform, so we can continue to fulfill our mission of not only documenting, but also preserving and sharing quilt stories. Please join us as a member today or make a donation. Consider it a subscription to our mission, one that requires fuel and tending to document and sustain our community for years to come. We hope you can help. Posted by Janneken Smucker President of the Board of Directors, Quilt Alliance…
If you’ve been looking for the perfect excuse to become or renew your Quilt Alliance membership, we have just the thing! In our annual contest members get to vote for one of the top prizes. This year’s theme–“Playing Favorites”–generated some amazing quilts. We’re not surprised, since that’s what happens when you let creative people do what they love to do. We can’t wait to hear what your favorites are! Anyone who renews or joins by 5pm EDT on June 6 can cast their vote (due by June 7 at 11pm EDT). The Members’ Choice winners and the HandiQuilter Grand Prize winner will be announced on Monday, June 13. All contest quilts will be auctioned off in our annual auction, which generates valuable funds to sustain our projects. Stay tuned for details in the…
The Quilt Alliance is pleased to announce the launch of our new website! Please, take a look around, make yourself at home, and let us know what you think. I first learned about the Quilt Alliance in 2002 when I was a graduate student in Textile History and Quilt Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. While attending the annual American Quilt Study Group seminar, I met a board member of the Alliance for American Quilts, as the organization was then called. She was attending AQSG to train members in how to conduct oral history interviews for the recently launched Quilters S.O.S. – Save Our Stories oral history project. As I soon learned, the Quilt Alliance was a virtual hub for quilts, and its website—one of the first sites dedicated to quilts on the World Wide Web—was known as “The Center for the Quilt Online.” Much has changed in our digital world since our founders established the Quilt Alliance in 1993. At that point, the World Wide Web was in its infancy. Today, the Quilt Alliance is far from the only website dedicated to quilts. In fact, the World Wide Web has changed quilting as we know it, helping foster communities of quiltmakers; teach new generations of quilters the art; and disseminate quilt knowledge, images, and stories on a scale unanticipated in 1993. Those outside the quilt world may assume quiltmaking is a dying art—just as some have claimed since at least the 1840s! But a mere glimpse at any number of quilt focused communities, organizations, or businesses indicates strongly otherwise! And much of this growth has transpired online. The Quilt Alliance is now one of many centers for the quilt online, each part of the thriving world quiltmakers and quilt enthusiasts inhabit. We are glad to not be alone in this digital world, and are in fact in very good company. We hope our new website will help us continue to play a vital role in this digital quilt network. We have strived to harness new tools to share our amazing projects with you and hope you’ll be patient with us as we iron out all the kinks (or should I say, press all the seams flat?) of our new platform. Enjoy, and do come back soon! Posted by Janneken Smucker President of the Board of Directors, Quilt Alliance jsmucker@wcupa.edu…
