Sponsored by the Japan Handicraft Instructors’ Association, an organization promoting handcraft arts through training and publications in Japan for more than 45 years, the Quilt Japan competition began in 1989 and became an international competition in 2005. The biennial contest is the largest in Japan and one of the most prestigious in the world. Only original works that have neither been previously exhibited nor published are accepted for judging.

On August 21, Lincoln will experience its first total eclipse in recorded history. While solar eclipses occur about once every 18 months, they are typically only seen in a specific area once every 375 years. To celebrate this moment, the International Quilt Museum will open a special pop-up exhibition of quilts August 18-20 in the Dillow Conservation Work Room.

The first 1970s quilt I bought reminded me of my childhood, especially summers spent at the community pool. As I accumulated more quilts—many made from polyester double-knit fabrics—the critics had plenty to say. People would actually make faces when I talked about polyester quilts. I didn’t care. I was enthralled. When I started bringing the quilts to show-and-tell with the local quilt guild, they were better appreciated. Part of that was generational—the group had a sense of Modern art, and the quilts’ aesthetic prompted a certain nostalgia in people who had come of age in the 1970s.

“I map the state where I live and document an internal and external landscape. I work with cloth and with piecing and quilting because of their references to human scale, human touch, and human occupation. With image and stitch I communicate the beauty and diversity of Nebraska, revealed over time and across distance. I want to attend to what is unseen as well as to what is visible, and value what is lost as well as what persists.”

-Elizabeth Ingraham

Something quilted this way comes . . .

The International Quilt Museum will share some of its most boo-tiful and spook-tacular pieces in “The Haunting of Quilt House,” a pop-up exhibit celebrating Halloween, October 27-29.

In addition to viewing specially selected pieces, there will be a scavenger hunt available, with answers hidden in the quilts. Visitors who come wearing their Halloween costumes will receive free admission and they can Trick or Treat at the front desk on their way out.

In the 1820s and 1830s, American quilts were increasingly made from pieced blocks—generally squares made up of smaller squares or triangles. American quiltmakers introduced the practice of alternating pieced blocks with un-pieced blocks made of a solid color or a single print, and set these elements straight (perpendicular to the edges of the quilt) or “on-point” (at 45° angles). Blocks were then attached to each other, or to strips of fabric called “sashing.” Unlike earlier quilts, which often featured multiple borders, block-style quilts generally had single borders or none at all.

Patchwork holds a special place in the folk art of Central Asia. In this region of diverse people, cultures, and landscapes, the act of sewing pieces of cloth together can be both sacred and commonplace. Everyday objects gain beauty through the display of plentiful fabrics, but they also acquire a mystical quality. Central Asians have long honored the power of talismans to guard against illness and malevolent spirits, fashioning protective amulets from patchwork and other textiles.

Founded in Britain in 1985 to develop and promote the quilt as an art form, the Quilt Art group currently includes artists from Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, the Netherlands, and the United States. Small Talk—one of two 30th anniversary exhibitions—celebrates the possibilities of the textile form and surface. 

The IQM is pleased to present Voltage, a selection of quilts by Erica Waaser. “I construct my quilts,” says Waaser, a native of Germany and an architect. Waaser considers her studio practice both an offshoot and an antidote to her day job in an engineering profession focused on design and function.

Old World Quilts transports us to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, an age of burgeoning global commerce and cultural exchange. Here you will view some of the earliest textiles from the International Quilt Museum’s collection. In this era, Europe’s desire for goods from unfamiliar, “exotic” Asian cultures led to unprecedented growth in overseas trade, which also fueled a boom in domestic manufacturing and fed a growing consumer mentality.