Textile Talks features weekly presentations and panel discussions from the International Quilt Museum, Quilt Alliance, Studio Art Quilt Associates, and Surface Design Association. The programs are held online at 2 pm Eastern / 11am Pacific US and Canada each Wednesday and last approximately one hour. Time zone converter.
All talks are recorded—over 275 are available! Looking for a particular topic or just want to explore? Check out our online index to search and filter previous Textile Talks. Please note that content in Textile Talks presentations is intended for personal educational and inspirational purposes.
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Please make a donation to help defray costs for the participating organizations.
Upcoming Talks
Wednesday, April 1, 2 pm EDT (Register now)
QSOS Interview with Gwen Westerman
Presented by: Quilt Alliance
Join us for an oral history interview with quiltmaker, poet, and educator Gwen Westerman for the Quilters’ Save Our Stories project (QSOS). The grassroots QSOS project has been documenting the lives of quiltmakers for more than two decades. QSOS is not only the largest collection of interviews with quilters, but also the largest grassroots oral history project of its kind in the world. Gwen’s interview will be archived with the rest of the historic QSOS collection on the QSOS website, at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, and at the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky.
Wednesday, April 8, 2 pm EDT (Register now)
Gillian Cooper – Fragments of the Past
Presented by: SAQA
One step, one mark, one stitch. On their own, they are fairly meaningless, but repeated and gathered together, these ordinary everyday acts turn into something more consequential – a walk, a drawing, a textile. This presentation shares Gillian Cooper’s reflections on a journey through 4 years of process driven practice, walking, drawing and stitching, using the framework of a Masters in Contemporary Art and Archaeology with the University of the Highlands and Islands, Scotland.
Wednesday, April 15, 2 pm EDT (Register now)
Quilts That Speak: What History Has Buried
Presented by: Surface Design Association
Join us on April 15 at 2PM EDT as we celebrate the publication of Quilt of Souls: A Memoir by Phyllis Biffle-Elmore. Quilts have long held the heartbeat of storytelling and the passing down of oral history. Phyllis’ grandmother Lula Young Horn (1883-1988) told her the stories embedded in her Quilts of Souls. As a master quilter – Grandmother Lula only made quilts from the clothing of deceased family members, friends, and neighbors. Each piece of clothing contained stories of how their lives were lived and these quilts carried the stories of their demise.
Wednesday, April 22, 2 pm EDT (Register now)
A Conversation with Quilt Scholar Kristin Barrus
Presented by: International Quilt Museum
Join Marin Hanson, the Curator of International Collections at the IQM, for a special talk with quilt scholar Kristin Barrus about the women of Generation X making their entrepreneurial impact on the quilt world.
Looking for a particular topic or just want to explore? Check out our new online index to search and filter previous Textile Talks.
Resource and links page for March 19, 2025 Textile Talk: QSOS Interview with Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi
Authorized mailing list for the Navajo Quilt Project
Labeling and Documenting Anonymous Quilts, Feb. 1, 2023
Baltimore Album Quilt resource guide mentioned during the Feb. 16, 2022 Textile Talk.
Textile Talk Sponsors
Thank you to our generous sponsors for underwriting the Textile Talks series.
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Recordings of Textile Talks presented by the Quilt Alliance
Textile Talks is brought to you by:
