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The Museum is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that receives over 80% of its funding through the generosity of the quilting community. The Annual Benefit Auction is one of the Museum's largest and most important fundraisers and it's your opportunity to own items by many of today's notable quilters including (but not limited to):

  • Robin Gausebeck
  • Carol A. Larson
  • Barbara Polston
  • Marianne Fons    
  • Patricia Hobbs
  • Karen Eckmeier
  • African American Quilt Guild of Oakland
Items include:
  • Art Quilts
  • Vintage Quilts
  • Baskets of Fabric
  • Handi Quilter Machine
  • Much more...

CLICK HERE TO VIEW ITEMS UP FOR AUCTION.

CLICK HERE TO BID.

Everyone Can Bid on Over 70 Items - Valued at Over $30,000!
 
Learn more about the Museum's work: QuiltMuseum.org/Support


 

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BERNINA is celebrating their 125th Anniversary and have been sharing fun feet facts. Here is some history behind their feet and here they are sharing how BERNINA feet are produced and why they are so special.
 

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Katherine Westphal (age 99) - created collage-like textiles and was a leader in the wearable art movement in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s and 1970s. She created quilts, kimonos, dresses, and baskets which reflected her travels around the world. She was a pioneer in using heat-dying processes to transfer images onto fabric.

Click here to read about Katherine's life in design.

Eli Leon (age 82) - Eli was a psychotherapist who ended up devoting his life to the study and collection of African American quilts. He made his first purchase in the mid-1980s at a flea market when he ran across a vendor, Effie Mae Howard aka Rosie Lee Tompkins, who invited hihttp://www.elileon.com/African-American_Quilts.htmlm to her home to see her quilts. He purchased one and a lifelong obsession was born. At the time of his death he left behind 3500 quilts.

Click here to learn more about Mr. Leon's life and his passion for African American quilts.

See More of the quilts here.

(Eli Leon - Photo: Sherri Lynn Wood : SFGate)

 

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Alex and Ricky are joined on the set by two TQS favorites, Cheryl Lynch and Lauren Vlcek. Cheryl is back to share a fast, fun and charming mini mosaic technique that won’t take months to create. Her trick for cutting the fabric lickety split means that you can get down to the fun of designing right away.
 
Then, Lauren joins Ricky to share great ideas for designing and making your own silk screens that won’t break the bank.
 
Star Members can watch Cheryl and Lauren in Show 2207: Low Sew Mosaics and DIY Silk Screens. The show debuts on Sunday, March 25, 2018.
 

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The Gold BERNINA 530 winner lives in the USA in the State pictured below. What State is it? Do you live there?  We are writing to you Friday to claim your prize. We will be writing the other winners today too. You have 1 week to respond or....

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Jackie Reis Quilt Enters Texas Tech Museum Collection
By Marian Ann J. Montgomery, Ph.D.
Curator, Clothing and Textiles, Museum of Texas Tech University

Jackie Reis was a quilter of the quilt revival who taught many West Texas and New Mexico women to quilt and also loved quilt history.  After her death in May 2017, the children of Jackie Reis donated her Balls and Bows quilt to the Clothing and Textiles Collection at the Museum of Texas Tech University.  This quilt was made using her first Accu-Pattern quilt block set.


Although basically self taught, Jackie attended workshops with Catherine Anthony, Libby Lehman, Helen Squire, Bernice Enyeart, Jean Ray Laury and others. Her enthusiasm and interest paralleled the quilting resurgence of the seventies. While trying to make up a quilt from a book she discovered that the patterns were not accurate so she decided she needed to do her own drafting.

 








Balls and Bows quilt by Jackie Reis 

Jackie Reis had an innate ability with geometry. Working with her husband, who was a mechanical engineer and taught her how to draft patterns on the computer, Jackie created the Accu-Pattern company out of her Lubbock home. Today’s quilters may have these patterns in their stash. Ten different pattern sets were produced. Along with the quilt the children also donated a complete run of the patterns and surviving business files.

Jackie was gracious in giving quilt related materials during her life to the Museum. Her most significant donation was the Sunburst Quilt created by Sally Beaird Lewellin circa 1885 in Brown County [in west central Texas], which she purchased from the family.

                  

If this quilt looks familiar it is because another made by Sally Beaird Lewellin is on the cover of the book, LoneStars, A Legacy of Texas Quilts, 1836-1936, the quilt documentation conducted by Karoline Patterson Bresenhan and Nancy O’Bryant Puentes. A paper on this pattern was given at the fall 2017 American Quilt Study Group Seminar that documented the unusual pattern to the Georgia/Tennessee border where Sally was raised. Jackie’s donation remains the only one of Sally Beaird Lewellin’s quilts to be in a public museum available for all to study and see.


As evidenced by her pattern company, Jackie enjoyed creating block patterns. Her children recall that after seeing the Texas shaped sidewalk-paving bricks outside a quilt shop in Lewisville, TX she went home and worked for 10 hours until she successfully drafted Texas Tessellations so it could be pieced without using inset pieces.  Below is a tote bag she made from this pattern, which she used while teaching quilting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Texas Tessellations pattern drafted by Jackie Reis
made into a tote bag by her circa 2000

Mrs. Reis was also an avid student of quilt history and attended inductions at the Quilters Hall of Fame in Marion, Indiana where she met several of the Honorees. The Flower Basket Petit quilt made by Grace Snyder based on a china pattern enchanted her. Jackie made a quilt top that is a small size version of the Grace’s quilt and donated it along with pieces of the china on which it was based.  The family also donated books from her quilt history research collection to the Clothing and Textiles Research Library of the Museum.


To have a quilt made by the founder of a Texas quilt pattern company from patterns she drafted and sold is a wonderful addition to the Museum’s Collection. Choosing which of her many quilts with which to honor Jackie’s memory at the museum was surely a challenge for her children.

Listen to a Quilt Alliance S.O.S. (https://quiltalliance.org/?s=dickson) with Sarah Abright Dickson from the International Quilt Festival where she mentions her first quilt class with teacher, Jackie Reis (at 3:50 min.), and the impact that class had on her quilting.

 

 

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A quilter in the Fabric Stalkers group sent an interesting article last week that was complied by a group of quilting organizations...The Quilt Company an umbrella for Fons & Porter, McCalls, QuiltMaker, and Quilting in the Arts to name a few. I found it fascinating, especially the data showing the results of "The Dedicated Quilter"  Who are you??

WHO IS THE DEDICATED QUILTER?
• Female
• 63 years old
• Well educated (70% attended college)
• Affluent ($95,900 household income)
• Quilting for an average of 19 years
• Spends on average $3,363 per year on quilting
• Quilting style(s): 85% prefer traditional quilting, 20% art quilting,
and 37% modern quilting

looking at this list I checked off how I measured up...

  • Female, Check
  • 63 years old, close enough
  • Well Educated, Check
  • Affluent...now that one depends on where you live!  $95,000 would not even begin to support your household, let alone your quilting in San Francisco          
  • Quilting for an average of 19 years, Check
  • Spends on average $3,363...holy moley...do I even want to find out???  But then a sewing machine alone would cost more than that!
  • 85% prefer traditional quilting!!!  Wow we are talkin'...cause I fit in that group, but surprisingly a lot of quilt shops are trending towards art & modern.

All of this made me think about the different types of quilters in my own stitch groups. 

  • Nibblers - Buy a lot of different genres, but maybe don't finish a lot (maybe they really are not sure about being a quilter and want to be a knitter).
  • Tasters - Dive into a lot of different genres and finish at least one type of quilt in several categories.
  • 4 Course Meals - These quilters actually finish a project before starting another one!
  • Smorgasbord -They dive in needle first and go for a sample of everything...just in case there is something that is awesome!
  • Dessert Only - This quilter is a kit buyer...they want everything that is going to be needed to complete a project.

...and then there is me who fits a majority of the Dedicated Quilter...but, given the weather, mood, and who I am stitching with, I am a little bit of every type!!! What about you??? I would love to know how you measure up?

 

Click here for Anna's blog.

Click here for Anna's YouTube Channel.

 

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Timna Tarr did. She created a quilt based on Holyoke, Mass., one of the country's first planned industrial cities. In Holyoke 1938, she used the juxtaposition of the natural river and the planned gridded streets as design inspiration. She also noted where her house is just across the river.
 

Holyoke 1938 won 3rd Place Small Quilts at QuiltCon 2016.

Photos: Mary Kay Davis

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The National Quilt Museum has a contest every year featuring a traditional block. It is the New Quilts from an Old Favorite contest. They are looking for the creator to put their own original twist on the design. This year the block was the Bow Tie. Here are the winners and finalists.

Next year's block is the Oak Leaf & Reel. Will you enter?

Bow Tie: 2018 Grand Prize Winner -
Formal Dinner by Alicia Sterna from Surprise, AZ

 

2nd Place - Caribbean Ties by Nancy Lambert from Greensboro, GA
 

3rd Place - Froggy Went A-Courtin’ by Laurie Schoenebeck from Mountain, WI

 
4th Place - Black Tie and Tails by Karen Grover from Rockford, IL
 
5th Place - Bow Doodles by Claudia Clark Myers from Duluth, MN
 
Finalists
  • You Can’t Tie a Bow around This by Jean Brueggenjohann from Columbia, MO
  • Maze Garden by Li-Hsiang Chen from Pin-Tung City, Taiwan
  • Negotiating the Price of an Apple by Tere D’Amato from Mashpee, MA
  • Black Tie for a Blue Moon Eclipse by Mary Kay Davis from Sunnyvale, CA
  • Silk Ties by Margaret Fetterhoff from Spring, TX
  • The Perfect Nanny by Cathy Geier from Waukesha, WI
  • Puttin’ on the Ritz by Leslie Johnson from Arvada, CO
  • Spring into Daily Lives by Hui-Fen Lin from Tainan, Taiwan
  • Bow Tied Barbers by Zeeda Magnuson from Minneapolis, MN
  • Black Tie Optional by Susan Mogan from Mobile, AL
  • Abstract on Black Tie by Sandi Snow from Lutz, FL
  • Cross Pollination by Rachel Weekley from Montgomery City, MO and Marilyn Smith from Columbia, MO
  • Papillon by Julie Wells from Cadiz, KY

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Spend a few minutes with the National Quilt Museum and learn about Mary Kerr's exhibit, Twisted. Find out about their youth programs and enjoy an interview with artist Mildred Sorrells.

Want to get involved with the museum, click here.