Carrefour 2024: Quilts III

This post is about two different places in the 29th Carrefour European Patchwork Show:

• Espace des Tisserands (Venue 6): Victoria Findlay Wolf, The Modern Quilt Guild, Quilt Art, Léna Meszaros
• Chapelle St. Joseph (Venue 9): PatCHquilt’s Concours Round Bobbin Invitational Challenge.

Hope you are all still with me, with seeing quilts from all over quilt land, but mostly from the European guilds.

All posts in order are on the European Patchwork (Carrefour) page.

See that grey low-slung building behind the red/yellow Meteor drinks tent? That is Espace des Tisserands, which translates to Weaver’s Space, and is an exhibition building.

First up in the post, is an exhibition by Victoria Findlay Wolfe, shown here with a self-portrait done in quilt. I am a fan of hers in many ways, and could almost be jealous of her being able to show at Carrefour, but I know how gracious she is (her talk from QuiltCon 2020 was disarming, thoughtful, and genuine), and how hard she works for her success. Of course, when you are star-struck, it’s hard to say anything coherent, so I didn’t ask her anything. Now I’d like to know, why she has started to incorporate photos-on-fabric in her work, what she thinks about this trend, how far can it go, and all that other stuff. Her latest book is also intriguing.

I didn’t photograph all her quilts (now I’m asking myself why not?). Mostly it was that we had only one day to see the Patchwork Show, and we were moving at a pretty good pace to try and visit all four towns and all seventeen venues. Next time I’m going slower. As always, if an image is in a gallery, clicking will enlarge it.

I also like how prominent the name of her quilter is on these title cards.

The large exhibition space is divided up with moveable walls, and we meandered towards The Modern Quilt Guild’s section. I spotted Yvonne Fuch‘s quilt (blue and white) and Ginny Robinson‘s quilt right away.

I tried to take different angle shots, so they could see how their quilts looked hanging, and with the other quilts.

I hope you are getting good at reading French. Always was happy to see the English underneath!

This is a quilt from the SAQA Europe and Middle East collection, right next to the Moderns.

And then we slid right into Quilt Art, and their exhibit, Following the Thread:

Sara Impey’s quilt puts into words what we are feeling here in America, with our election in a couple of weeks, even though she is from Britain. I guess the post-truth puzzle happens in many countries!

I wanted to show the details on this first, before you saw the full quilt:

Of course I loved this quilt of circles, sewn onto a semi-sheer fabric, and used for her tablecloth. Léna Meszaros had a small collection of her works; clicking on the link will tell you more about her and her work. Here is one that caught my eye:

Given that I brought home a full-blown case of covid after returning home, this quilt certainly was apropos for this time in my life. (Click to enlarge any image.)

She also had some sculptural works; I thought the Tour de France cyclists riding up the Eiffel Tower hat was a kick!

We walk by the lavender house one more time, and cross the little river…

…because we are headed to our car, and moving on out of Sainte-Marie-Aux-Mines. Well almost–we have one more stop, at Chapelle St. Joseph (Venue 9) on the edge of town (below).

As we walked in, they handed us a latex glove. Oh, this is something different. On a giant frame, like the spokes of a wheel hung all these strips: about 500 of them, from 16 countries, and with 15,000 images. There’s only one way to see this, and it’s to go straight in.

Dave gives me a smile — it’s a happy place, with so much energy!

I step out to the side to get another perspective, and to look again. From the website:

“For its 35th anniversary, PatCHquilt invited all European guild members to apply for an identical 12 cm wooden bobbin. The 35 tiny mixed media blocks that make the long ribbons are based on the traditional themes of wedding anniversary gifts. This juried exhibition is the European premier of the collection. Not one bobbin is like the next, every type of textile technique is represented, from weaving to embroidery to batik.”

The catalogue further explained that the “35 tiny mixed media blocks that make the long ribbons are based on the traditional themes of wedding anniversary gifts.” Here’s a listing of those gifts, European-style.

Note: PatCHquilt has the C and the H capitalized on purpose.

(I blurred out some of the personal info on the labels.)

I thought Studio Mi’s interpretation of the red heels going the ribbon was pretty clever. Her tag even had them, along with a small decorative pair.

I think the idea was to use the listing of gifts, but perhaps not to get too precious about everything, maybe stitch it in a more casual way; the overall effect of these quilt ribbons put a smile back on our faces, and gave us energy to keep going. We even had music:

Towards the end of the video, you can see the “bobbins” that hold the streamers.

It was hard to leave this happy place. I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of discovery — how critical it is to my life to not be told everything, leaving some spaces for a spark of learning something new. I thought I “knew” quilt shows. But this exhibit was one I did not expect, but loved.

Across from the Chapelle St. Joseph was this pink apartment building of three stories. Well maybe four with that teeny window at the top. But two of the shutters on the third floor had tiny birdhouses attached to them, and the birds were fluttering all around.

With a baguette that we grabbed from one of the food tents, we climbed back into the car and headed off. One last thing for this post: Bits and Pieces of the Olympics.

We have no idea why a half-assembled Eiffel Tower is sitting in a junk yard way out here in Alsace.

Next post, which may be the last if you are too tired of all this and if I can cram more in: Saint Croix Aux Mines, Lièpvre and Rombach-le-Franc. There are fewer venues at the next three towns, but a couple of knock-your-socks off exhibits. (Okay, maybe there will be *two* more.)