“Barn Quilts” are all over the U.S! Take a drive across rural roads and even cities and towns, and you will find quilt blocks painted on barns, silos, homes, fence rows, and other structures in bright, cheery colors…far larger than any stitched blocks! In this exhibit, take a “Sunday drive” with the family, and play your own game of "I Spy."

“Barn Quilts” are all over the U.S! Take a drive across rural roads and even cities and towns, and you will find quilt blocks painted on barns, silos, homes, fence rows, and other structures in bright, cheery colors. And they are far larger than any stitched blocks! In this exhibit, take a “Sunday drive” and play your own game of "I Spy."

Just as quilters create beautiful pieces of art with fabric, florists and gardeners cultivate works of beauty from the soil. This exhibit showcases floral-inspired quilts from across the spectrum in lush color and splendor.

Just as quilters create beautiful pieces of art with fabric, florists and gardeners cultivate works of beauty from the soil. This exhibit showcases floral-inspired quilts from across the spectrum in lush color and splendor.

Just as quilters create beautiful pieces of art with fabric, florists and gardeners cultivate works of beauty from the soil. This exhibit showcases floral-inspired quilts from across the spectrum in lush color and splendor.

Just as quilters create beautiful art with fabric, florists and gardeners cultivate works of beauty from the soil. This exhibit showcases floral-inspired quilts from across the spectrum in lush color and splendor.

Just as quilters create beautiful art with fabric, florists and gardeners cultivate works of beauty from the soil. This exhibit showcases floral-inspired quilts from across the spectrum in lush color and splendor.

How to Enter Your Quilt:
• Limit of two (2) entries per person
• There is an entry fee of $20 (USD) per quilt
• Registration closes on April 24, 2025
• Size: a minimum of 24”, maximum of 90” on any side
• The piece must be completed between 2022 and 2025

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The Princeton Sankofa Stitchers Modern Quilt Guild (PSSMQG) honors African American quilting traditions, celebrating Harriett Powers (1837–1910), a Black quilter born enslaved in Georgia. Powers’ quilts, like the Bible Quilt and Pictorial Quilt, are iconic in American art. PSSMQG has recreated her Pictorial Quilt with vibrant, modern fabrics, preserving her legacy.

Contemporary quiltmakers often look to the art form’s rich tradition and history for inspiration for their own works. This exhibit features recently made quilts that incorporate traditional blocks, styles, and/or techniques.

Contemporary quiltmakers often look to the art form’s rich tradition and history for inspiration in their own works. This exhibit features recently made quilts that incorporate traditional blocks, styles, and/or techniques.

Contemporary quiltmakers often look to the art form’s rich tradition and history for inspiration in their own work. This exhibit features recently made quilts incorporating traditional blocks, styles, and/or techniques.

Contemporary quiltmakers often look to the art form’s rich tradition and history for inspiration in their own works. This exhibit features recently made quilts that incorporate traditional blocks, styles, and/or techniques.

To celebrate our nation’s capital, many fiber artists portrayed key places and important events in the Washington, D.C. area. This exhibit showcases historical buildings, monuments, landmarks, museums, and recreational areas of the city and area, creating a visual travelogue.

Kaffe Fassett is the undisputed genius of color. From his partnership with Bill Gibb in which multi-colored, complex knitwear designs became his trademark, to becoming the first living textile artist to have a one-man show at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Kaffe has reigned supreme in textiles, patchwork, needle arts and more for over 50 years. As he reaches a milestone birthday this December, we reflect on his influence which has encouraged quilters across the world to embrace the brilliance of glorious colors and the beauty of bold designs in their craft and into their lives.

From valleys and volcanoes to mountains to monuments, landscapes often inspire artists, including many in the quilt world. This expansive exhibit showcases many stunning geographical wonders.

From valleys and volcanoes to mountains and monuments, landscapes often inspire artists, including many in the quilt world. This exhibit showcases many stunning geographical wonders.

From valleys and volcanoes to mountains and monuments, landscapes often inspire artists, including many in the quilt world. This expansive exhibit showcases many stunning geographical wonders.

From valleys and volcanoes to mountains to monuments, landscapes often inspire artists, including many in the quilt world. This expansive exhibit showcases many stunning geographical wonders.

Fowler’s quilts reflect a lifetime of her fascinations and preoccupations. She enjoys making art about things that capture her imagination like rock stars and their songs, stories, world travel, and fractal geometry. And she’s found her creative delight using fabric, paint, stitch, and scissors. The quilts in this exhibit will spark treasured memories for viewers.

This collection of 19th, 20th and 21st Century signature quilts illustrates the many reasons why they were made, including friendship, presentation, commemoration, memorial, and fundraising examples. Many methods of making the signatures are shown, such as stamped ink, signature ink, and cross and running stitch embroidery. The collection includes a wide variety of pieced and appliquéd quilts.

By study, replication, and reinterpretation, we pay homage to the anonymous quiltmaker who designed and executed this complex and beautiful antique quilt. Sheila Bishop, who named the quilt Lost Star due to its missing provenance, and her computer-whiz son Grant worked together to create the templates. Anne Dawson then produced an approachable, coherent pattern. Quilting friends rallied, each beautifully interpreting the original quilt in their own way.

By study, replication, and reinterpretation, we pay homage to the anonymous quiltmaker who designed and executed this complex and beautiful antique quilt. Sheila Bishop and her son Grant worked together to create the templates. Anne Dawson then produced an approachable, coherent pattern. Quilting friends rallied, each beautifully interpreting the original quilt in their own way.

This series of 21 miniature quilts focuses on the traditional Pineapple block done on a very small scale. All blocks are 2” or less, and all strips are 1/8” wide or less. Each quilt has thousands of pieces, and the series was considered complete when the total number of pieces reached 201,751. Eighteen of these quilts were pandemic quilts, completed after March 2020. The quilts are machine foundation pieced and quilted in the ditch.

This year, Long Beach Modern Quilt Guild redesigned their guild logo. The challenge for members was to use the three new colors, a neutral, and an optional wildcard fabric. They then selected a geometric shape and created a quilt with a perimeter less than 96 inches. The quilts hung as part of LBMQG's annual fiber art exhibition, Perspectives at the Alpert Jewish Community Center. See the entries here!

This exhibit showcases modern quilts that feature a clear focal point surrounded by the rest of the design elements in the quilt, drawing the eye in. These quilts, made by MQG members, were selected from quilts that hung at QuiltCon 2022 in Phoenix.

Through Lines is a collection of quilts from QuiltCons 2022-2024 that were displayed in a variety of categories. These quilts use the line—that most basic of design elements—in effective and interesting ways. Whether pieced, quilted, or just created with a seam, the line is a key component in these striking modern quilts.

Modern quilts often take traditional blocks and reinterpret them by using solid-colored fabrics or give them a new twist by using negative space, minimal repeats, improvisational piecing, and gridding for quilting.

Modern quilts often take traditional blocks and reinterpret them through the use of solid-colored fabrics or give them a new twist by using negative space, minimal repeats, improvisational piecing, and gridding for quilting. A modern quilt can be pieced or appliquéd. This exhibit showcases amazing modern quilts from talented artists.

This large quilt is comprised of four overlapping panels (6' x 17'6") that depict a colorful Nativity scene. Included in the tree branches at the left and extended across the sky like stars are the 16 Jesse Tree symbols (suggesting stories from the Bible that point to God's faithfulness as people waited for the Messiah to come).

Over 20 years, Karen G. Fisher’s quilts have celebrated three main interests: the southern Arizona desert she calls home, Medieval Art History, and the Earth Sciences, especially geology and astronomy. Her lifelong art education has kept her trying—and even inventing—new techniques to achieve the effects she wanted in her designs.

While searching for her artistic voice, Hope Wilmarth discovered that while she had one song of creativity, there were many verses to it. Three of the verses to that intrinsic tune are exhibited here in three perspectives: Abstract, Nature, and Contemporary. Her work continues to evolve with different techniques. In this exhibit, Wilmarth shares a variety of her fiber song styles.

Life has changed for the artist Farquhar, and it has changed her approach to quilting. She used to create only what she considered “joyful” quilts. She now allows her emotions to speak through her quilts which include despair and loss, but also hope. She hopes her quilts generate conversations among viewers.

Life has changed for the artist Farquhar, and it has changed her approach to quilting. She used to create only what she considered “joyful” quilts. She now allows her emotions to speak through her quilts which include despair and loss, but also hope. She hopes her quilts generate conversations among viewers.

This collection of unique quilts was in response to monthly challenges that the artists created for each other. Their themes were My Happy Place, Stripe Out, Reflections, Beneath, Contrast, Rock, Layers, and What\'s Next. Quilts were created by a diverse group of women who challenged each other in a supportive and inspiring community which allowed them to evolve as artists.

Paula Nadelstern is a “Patternista” hardwired to see patterns everywhere. For over 35 years, she has filtered her design inspiration through a kaleidoscopic lens, resulting in a personal quilt idiom. Employing a technique that is counterintuitive to the conventional quilting process, she obscures the seams that join the intricate patchwork, encouraging an uninterrupted flow of design or color from one patch to the next and creating the illusion that there are no seams at all.

Every year, Cherrywood chooses a theme and color palette and presents a challenge to quilters from all over the world. The challenge is to see what you can create using a very limited number of colors and show the beautiful suede look of their hand-dyed fabrics. This year’s theme is “poppy” and the fabrics are a gorgeous collection of eight colors of reds, red-oranges, blue-grays, and greens. Prepare to be captivated as artists push the boundaries, weaving threads, paints, pencils, inks, and beads into a symphony of colors that transcend imagination.

This exhibit is the work of about 20 friends who have been working together for over 25 years. Their creations are freely inspired by traditional quilts of the 19th and early 20th century England, Holland, France, and North America. They reinterpret them with traditional techniques, creating a real empathy with the work, and are ompletely executed by hand.

Though they work behind the scenes, International Quilt Festival could not be produced (or enjoyed by tens of thousands of attendees) without the hard-working members of The Piece Corps. These ladies and gentlemen—all expertly skilled and trained—are crucial to the show and responsible for receiving, hanging, taking down, and shipping back all of the quilts on display. They work very close to these amazing works of art, and many are talented creators themselves. This exhibit features works by members of The Piece Corps with a wide variety of techniques, styles, and subject matter.

Thread, passion, tiny stitches and harmonious makin, this is how the adventure of the Quilts de Légende was built. It included the search for the perfect model to best showcase the skill and expert hands of these French quilters. Exclusive fat quarters, copied from historic design, are showcased in this exhibit’s works.

Bee Sewcial is an international, improvisational quilting bee. Each month, the selected group leader provides an inspiration—a theme, palette, restrictions, etc.—for the members of the bee to follow when they design and make a block. The monthly group leader designs a quilt using the improv creation of each contributing member. Each quilt is unique, yet reflects the cohesion and trust they have toward each other.

Bee Sewcial is an international, improvisational quilting bee. Each month, the selected group leader provides an inspiration—a theme, palette, restrictions, etc.—for the members of the bee to follow when they design and make a block. The monthly group leader designs a quilt using the improv creation of each contributing member.

Abstract art invites the viewer to engage with their own imagination, to find personal meaning in the work. ”The function of abstraction is to get rid of a lot of reality. You start with as much richness as you want and subtract”—Robert Motherwell.

For over 10 years, the Barbara Bush Literacy Foundation has made a difference in the lives of children and adults by giving them the tools they need to become proficient readers. These quilts illustrate a favorite book, tells a story of its own, or encourages someone to read.

For over a decade, the Barbara Bush Literacy Foundation has made a difference in the lives of children and adults by giving them the tools they need to become proficient readers. Use your creativity to make a quilt that illustrates a favorite book, tells a story of its own, or encourages someone to read. You can even depict Barbara Bush herself!

For official photos of Mrs. Bush from the Barbara Bush Foundation, download here »

How to Enter Your Quilt:
• Limit of two (2) entries per person
• There is an entry fee of $20 (USD) per quilt
• Registration closes on April 24, 2025
• Size: a minimum of 24”, maximum of 86” on any side
• The piece must be completed between 2021 and 2025
• The quilt may illustrate a children’s story or an aspect of Mrs. Bush’s life

RULES »
PREVIEW PAGE »
ENTRY PAGE »

This exhibit features 19 new works that celebrate a return to pre-Covid life. Rebounding from restrictions that limited personal contact and renewing activities which were not possible during the pandemic. Each quilt is defined by a title beginning with “re.” Meditations on personal memories or emotions inspired some artists, while others used solitude to contemplate color, texture, or process.

This exhibit features 50 miniature quilts by sisters Andrea Blackhurst and Ellen Carter. Their miniatures were previously featured at Festival’s 40th anniversary Ruby Jubilee Celebration in 2014, and again for the 45th Sapphire Celebration in 2019. The works here are miniature versions of traditional quilts, this year done in red, white, and blue to complement the color scheme for Festival’s 50th anniversary. It is also a companion exhibit to “50 Years of Great Quilts.”

This retrospective celebrates the memory, work, and creativity of Collier, an award-winning quiltmaker, teacher, pattern designer, and antique quilt collector. She found her passion for quilting in 1986 after taking a sampler class and learning the basics from experienced quilters in rural Tennessee. She also learned to make 1840s Baltimore Album style quilts and specialized in those, as well as pieced quilts in the 1830s Medallion style. It was her hope that viewers could look through the “window” of her work and be taken back in time to a walk in the woods or a respite in the garden, feeling refreshed and peaceful.

Rocks, pebbles, and stones are formed by sedimentation, fire, and pressure, and are acted on by external forces after formation. In this exhibit, each artist used the soft media of fabric, fiber, and stitch to create a work depicting the qualities of rock, pebble and stone: hardness, texture, color, luster, shape, and size.

Sacred Threads is an exhibition of quilts exploring themes of joy, inspiration, spirituality, healing, grief, and peace/brotherhood. This biennial exhibition was established to provide a safe venue for quilters who see their work as a connection to the sacred and/or as an expression of their spiritual journey. The hope is that visitors experience healing and strength through the stories of this powerful exhibition.

Each quilt in this collection carries a story of resilience, spirituality, and hope, offering patients, visitors, and caregivers a moment of solace and connection. Sacred Threads is a non-profit with a biennial exhibition of quilts exploring themes of joy, inspiration, spirituality, healing, grief and peace/brotherhood. Sacred Threads was established to provide a safe venue for quilters who see their work as a connection to the sacred and/or as an expression of their spiritual journey.