Special Exhibits

Whether it's rock or pop, country or blues, jazz or classical, rap or heavy metal, songs have always inspired both people and artists working in all sorts of mediums. They can also come wrapped in memories, instantly transporting the listener to a specific place and time in their life. Artists submitted a quilt titled after a song, and then interpreted that tune or their feelings about it in fabric

Recognizing the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, this exhibit features a diverse range of quilts, telling personal and collective stories, while emphasizing the emotional and social connections of quilting. These quilts celebrate the creativity and craftsmanship of quilters, highlighting the cultural and historical experience of African-Americans and people of color.

Participants were challenged to select an existing quilt that fits the Quilt Study guidelines and create a smaller replica, interpreting the elements of the original quilt in a new and fresh way. This exhibit highlights many of the participants’ inspiration and showcases their corresponding replica quilts from various AQSG Quilt Studies through the years.

Arcadia includes the 14 cover quilts for the Quiltworx Technique of the Month, using fabrics from companies across the industry. This exhibit is unique in that it features 14 of the same quilts in two sizes (80” and 99”), imagined by their makers in unexpected ways. It is truly an industry collaboration, showcasing your favorite fabric designs, fabric companies, national instructors, and quilt shops.

Alex Is Crafting is an award-winning cosplayer based in New York City. They have been making costume and yarn work and are a co-director of Anime NYC’s Masquerade and Vice President of the NYC Crochet Guild. They also design their own patterns, host panels and workshops about yarn cosplaying, and compete in the cosplay convention circuit in their yarn costumes.

Celebrating playfulness, femininity, and emotional resilience through a recurring motif: The blue petticoat. Quilted portraits of women and girls wrapped in layers of blue tulle—often accompanied by balloons, bows, flowers, or a costumed corgi—appear whimsical, yet speak to joy as quiet defiance. Works were created with photography, digital painting, textile collage, and freestyle quilting.

Brazil is a country that has received much from the world through its immigration. This exhibit brings together Brazilian quilters, who love flowers, to showcase some of these blooms. We mix native flowers with those that came from abroad, along with small seedlings of hope... all blooming and perfuming the country of Brazil.

A series of large, three-dimensional art quilt installations consisting of fiber art pieces in a variety of sizes, scale, and dimensions. Works include a triptych quilt of native Ethiopian landscape. It is storytelling through textiles using fabric, illustration, and mixed media. This exhibition is designed to raise awareness of ecological preservation, global consciousness, and cultural diversity.

Art is an excellent way to express emotions. For this exhibit, artists depict how they, a family member, or a friend celebrated a loved one’s wedding, birth, birthday, or memorial. Colors, patterns, traditional blocks, or abstract drawings can be combined or used alone to convey a wide range of emotions, moods, and feelings.

The 2026 theme, Storytime, evokes nostalgic memories of snuggling up at night to read a favorite book. The challenge aims to capture the timeless joy and imagination of classic stories. From beloved childhood tales to personal narratives told through fabric and thread, The Storytime Challenge comprises 225 small art quilts, celebrating connection, imagination, and nostalgia.

This exhibition presents a curated selection of works by members of the Korea Contemporary Quilt Group. Showcasing diverse artistic approaches, the quilts explore color, form, and composition through a contemporary lens. Each artist brings a distinct voice, offering a compelling perspective on the evolving landscape of contemporary quilt art in Korea.

Melinda Stanton fell in love with English paper piecing, and the work of English novelist Lucy Boston in particular. Happy to “spread the Lucy love,” she has taught dozens of classes over the years, in stores and at guilds. Stanton is very proud of her students’ work and grateful to them for sharing it. This exhibit showcases some of the many ways that EPP blocks can be used.

This solo exhibition by Naida Koraly presents 39 originally designed fabric collage art quilts depicting world history as seen through the eyes of women from different countries and cultures. These art quilts offer a unique merging of the quilting arts with the fine arts as viewers journey through vibrantly colored fictional scenes based on historical facts.

This exhibit honors the artistry of the Quilt Guild of Greater Houston, showcasing quilts created by its members in celebration of its historic founding in 1976 as the first quilt guild in Texas. This exhibit celebrates quilting not only as an art form, but as an expression of creativity, legacy, and enduring connection. It is a tribute to the makers, the memories, and the shared threads that bind this guild together.

Artists from around the world incorporate influences from their own cultures into the design and technique of their quilts. This prestigious, long-running international showcase includes recent quilts by some of these international artists.

Hooked on Presidents brings American history to life—one loop at a time. This remarkable exhibition features 44 hand-hooked rug portraits of U.S. Presidents, created by acclaimed sister artists Nola Heidbreder and Linda Pietz. It offers a fresh, engaging approach to presidential portraiture through the traditional folk art of rug hooking.

Two great Houston Institutions have come together for International Quilt Festival to present the Blue Ribbon Winning quilts from the 2026 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo (HLSR). We’re sure you’ll enjoy the quilts of Texas, with winners in both the Adult and Juvenile categories. To participate in the HLSR quilt competition in 2027, check their website at www.RodeoHouston.com.

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.

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.

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.

This exhibition presents works that explore the relationship between light, color, and transparent layers through organza patchwork. Each work is fully detailed on both front and back, creating different visual experiences depending on the viewer’s perspective and surrounding environment. Through this, the works propose a visual balance between material and immaterial qualities.

Eleven quilt projects by American artist Marianne McCann, spanning 42 years of her artistry (1984-2026). The exhibit illuminates one woman's life journey expressed in needle and thread, with an emphasis on re-using found materials.

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. A modern quilt can be pieced or appliquéd.

Celebrating the enduring story of our nation through the powerful language of fiber. This invites viewers to experience America as seen, felt, and remembered by quiltmakers from across the country. The quilts in this exhibition reflect personal and collective interpretations of America—its triumphs and challenges, its joys and sacrifices. Unified not by style or era but by meaning, these quilts honor the diverse ways Americans express identity, memory, and belonging.

The Guild is dedicated to preserving and promoting the craft and art of crochet for current and future generations. The Octo-Maid and the sea creatures were made by amigurumi artist Lara Castle and the wig was done by cosplay knit/crochet artist Alex Is Crafting. The seaweed shawls and the coral reef were created by multiple fiber artists.

Do you think quilts made with only one color are boring? No! In fact, they can be visually exciting. These artists prove that here. Each quilt in this exhibit begins with a single color and truly showcases the color challenge by incorporating various shades, tints, tones and value from light to dark. Each artist created a stunning and beautiful monochromatic piece with depth and visual interest.

This exhibit reflects unique interpretations of designated patterns sewn into quilts and sometimes believed to be a code communicating a path to freedom during the time of slavery in America. Certain colors and symbols have been thought to reveal information aiding navigation from one checkpoint to the next for freedom seekers. These quilts are examples of beliefs by quilters and some family members that are passed down in stories and hold significant threads within the multilayered fabric of American history. Research into this topic will undoubtedly continue.

The American Museum & Gardens will present three quilts from its newly acquired collection of twelve extraordinary works by the renowned group of African-American women from Gee’s Bend, Alabama. The exhibition showcases the work of Essie Bendolph Pettway, Loretta Pettway Bennett, and Sally Mae Pettway Mixon.

This exhibit was created in a spirit of openness, curiosity, and hope. In a time when political and cultural differences are being challenged, this exhibit offers a place to pause and reflect—a stepping stone toward moving forward together. Twelve shared words form the foundation of these works, each interpreted by one Canadian and one American artist.

This exhibition explores the beauty, diversity and significance of pollinators and their impact on our future. Join us in raising awareness of pollinators and their importance through art. Selected pieces highlight the crucial role pollinators play in sustaining Earth's ecosystems.

The mission of this Sugar Land, Texas-based group is to keep the needle arts alive through smocking, embroidery, and heirloom sewing. They support their community by providing Wee Care gowns to area hospitals and parents of babies who have passed away. The group also strives to provide programs that are educational, interesting, and fun.

This exhibit speaks to the urgent stories of our time. Each work carries a message, expressed through fabric and thread, that invites viewers to pause, reflect, and engage. The artists use their quilts to illuminate the realities of climate change, homelessness, and endangered species, and human hardship while also exploring resilience, healing feminism, spirituality and the legacies of history.

In 2022, and again in 2024, a group of intrepid quilters embarked on the ultimate patchwork challenge: to construct a tiny 4” block every day for a year, using every conceivable technique. Every block had a heavenly theme, stars, planets, and space technology. The result, Star of Wonder, designed by Australian quilter Kathryn Ker, is a remarkable 80” x 80” quilt with more than 10,000 pieces.

This exhibit celebrates all 50 U.S. states through fabric, pattern, and design. Each quilt reflects a state's unique cultural identity, historical roots, and defining industries from agricultural and manufacturing to music, migration, and innovation. Together, these quilts form a textile map of the nation, revealing how diverse stories and traditions are bound into a shared American narrative.

Jill Rimes and Jamie Mueller are the mother-daughter team behind Sunflower Quilts, sharing a lifelong love of quilting, sewing, and inspiring creativity. Jamie grew up under Jill’s hand-quilting frame and has been sewing all her life. Today, Jamie brings that passion to her role as Director of Education for International Quilt Festival. This exhibit features quilts from their personal collection: quilts made for shows, special projects, and quilts that have been loved and used in their homes over the years. Each quilt represents a piece of their family’s quilting journey and their passion for sharing the joy of making.

Buildings have a long history of inspiring the creative designs of quiltmakers. In the 19th century, American quilters developed classic architectural blocks and patterns such as Log Cabin, Schoolhouse, and Brick Wall. This annual juried exhibit challenges quiltmakers to create works based on architectural themes and inspirations. The quilt style reflect traditional, modern, and art techniques.

The expression “Tudo Azul/All Blue” is a way of stating that everything is great, peaceful, calm, and flowing well. We live in a time where haste has set in, and where people are always needing to finish something. But if it doesn't work out that’s okay...all in peace. And in the blue universe of this exhibit, the challenge was to assemble the pieces using a kit with only shades of blue.

This exhibit presents 15 Advocacy Project quilts from around the world. The blocks were stitched by 160 women and girls in nine countries, and assembled by 22 quilters in the U.S., Canada, France, and Kenya. The theme of our exhibit is “Innovation” in that each quilt demonstrates a new approach to stitching and assembling blocks.

Regardless of our lived experiences, we instinctively recognize that our words reflect our thoughts, emotions, and relationships. Words can create positive, and encouraging interactions or they can be weapons of harm and emotional damage. These illustrated words have significance to each artist, interpreted through a personal lens, written large in our minds, and lingering in our thoughts.

The debut Young Emerging Artists (YEA!) Exhibition celebrates the creativity and fresh perspectives of textile artists age 35 and younger. The exhibition is created to elevate emerging voices and encourage a new generation of artists to become part of the art quilt community. Through cash awards, networking opportunities, and increased visibility, YEA! shines a spotlight on these talented young artists and the exciting future they are shaping for the field.