Quilted by Shannon Baker
New York City
2010
2016.009.0003

Flower pillow
Elda Wolfe
Minnesota
1983
2016.009.0002

Victoria Findlay Wolfe is a formally trained artist who has achieved great success with exhibitions of quilts and teaching as well as the sale of her quilts, fabric lines and books. Findlay Wolfe founded the New York City Mod Quilters, part of a quilting movement that embraces new, young quiltmakers. Growing up on a Minnesota farm and living in New York City for the past two decades, her renditions of traditionally-based quilt patterns, made in a fresh and modern way, have had a significant impact on quilting today.

Drawing from her grandmother Elda Wolfe’s colorful polyester quilts—like the flower pillow, which inspired this quilt—Findlay Wolfe explores the fabrics, colors and landscapes of her childhood.

In 15 Minutes of Play: Improvisational Quilts, she writes:

“After looking at the way my grandmother put fabrics together, I went about making a version of her technique that reflects the way I approaching making fabric for my quilts. I like parts of a quilt to surprise you—a block that was intentionally made wonky or a new color added in. This quilt gives me such joy, as I can see just how much my grandmother has influenced the way I approach fabrics.”

Findlay Wolfe’s work has exhibited worldwide, including at the International Quilt Festival, the Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival and the International Quilt Museum. In 2013, her quilt, Double Edged Love, won the Best of Show award at QuiltCon.

While visiting Quilt House in June, she created this video inside Off the Grid: The Bill Volckening Collection, which also features polyester quilts, like the ones she grew up watching her grandmother make.