Carrefour Quilt Show was a lively, interesting and fascinating experience. This final post is about two different places in the 29th Carrefour European Patchwork Show (2024): 

• Espace D’Exposition (Venue 15): EQA’s Imagine a Bird, France Patchwork guild quilts, Threaded Together, Justine & Cow, Marina Landi, Artextures
• Église St. Rosalie (Venue 17): Ana Helena Abreu

A full listing of all the artists is found on the European Patchwork (Carrefours) website, here. Click on 2024.

If you want to read these posts in order, head to the European Patchwork (Carrefour) page, where I have both years listed.

Both times I’ve been to this show, it has rained, so when the skies started drizzling, it wasn’t unexpected. (We love rain, as we live in an area that doesn’t get much.) Last time, I was in the vendor tents, so I was happy this time I was in the car, driving to our last set of exhibits: Venues 15, 16, and 17. By this time in the day, we are getting tired, but don’t want to quit (sign of a good show!).

Just inside, everything is light and bright. The first quilts we saw on the left were the quilts from Krista Hennebury of Canada, and Lorena Uriarte, from Australia.

They were part of an exhibit “In Conversation/Threaded Together.”

Click to enlarge any of the gallery images.

We moved quickly to the next grouping, and I thought this quilt was fascinating, but I forgot to photograph her partner’s quilt.

A series of minis, all in conversation. Please click to enlarge; unfortunately the expired address above for the tinyurl doesn’t take you anywhere.

An Old Woman with Joyous Face, by Marina Landi was a fascinating layering of texture and color and quilting. Her skills with this were fascinating, and amazing. Close-ups, below:

It looks like she layered snippets of a silk fabric onto a darker background in a tight mosaic, then quilted it in directional lines. In her title card (below), she noted that the silk is all hand-dyed.

Old Man with His Dog, by Marina Landi.

This one has the same look, but instead is digitally printed; because of this, it has a softer definition. I was cropping all the quilts to give a clean edge, but below I show it uncropped so you can see the faced binding.

Summer Wind, by Marina Landi.

Here are a couple of quilts from France Patchwork.

The one just above is from the Milan series by the fiber-art work artists Daniela Arnoldi and Marco Sarzi Sartori, (DAMSS). They work in tandem; here’s an article I found about them, and their website is here. I loved how the threadwork depicted the Milan cathedral.

Gabrielle Pacquin, one of my favorite European quilters, had a quilt here in the France Patchwork exhibit Artextures.

Arc en Ciel de Lit [Rainbow Bed] is a quilt published in Issue 158 of the magazine for France Patchwork, Les Nouvelles. They publish this magazine quarterly, and if I could read French, I’d be subscribing. Their website can give you more information (and it can be translated by Google Translate, if your French-language skills need an assist).

Hiver Douillet [Cozy Winter], published in Issues 157-159. I will sometimes hold my hand floating above the quilt so you can get an idea of scaled. Look at those tiny pieces!

Les Pas Japonais d’Antonin [Anton’s Japanese Steps], published in Issue 160.

Now do you understand why I think it is so lovely to go to France and to be introduced to all these new ideas?

Something to do with all your bags. Corinne Prévotel from France Patchwork wove this, again in the Artextures section. She had two there of this style, and called it Suite.

Lever le Voile [Lifting the Veil] by Ghislaine Berlier Garcia, from France Patchwork.

The title means “Moving.”

Around another corner and we find the EQA (European Quilt Association) exhibit of “Imagine a bird.” All these little mini quilts were wonderful and it was hard to choose just some to photograph.

Of course I loved this little one, with quilts on a quilt.

On the left is the representative from Italy, and on the right is the EQA person from Sweden (hope I got that right). I had a wonderful chat with them, talking quilt stuff around the world, as I was especially interested in how their guild quilt shows were faring after COVID (I was last here in 2017, before Covid-19 slammed the planet). The lady from Sweden told me that their last show before 2020 they had about 80 vendors. And now? they had only one in 2022. We talked about the factors of attrition, as well as vendors aging out of the business. I told them that our local shows were equally diminished, and wondered if they would ever recover. It’s good to get an understanding of how we quilters are faring all over the planet, yet also really lovely to find quilters all over the planet, too.

We climbed back in the car, the sun shining brightly, and head to our last stop: Église Ste. Rosalie, a small church in Rombach-Le-Franc. Yes, I am not posting every space or exhibit, so you’ll have to go there to see it all.

I’m standing just in front of the church, this little lane of this little town all bright and sunny.

I just want you to get a feel for how this quilt show is laid out. We are here to see Ana Helena Abreau, a woman who excels at geometric art in quilts.

As you can see, all the quilts are well lighted.

Even though I don’t speak Portuguese, and she didn’t seem to speak English, we used the time-honored communications of patting our hearts, and me, gesturing to her amazing quilts, while nodding and bowing. You can find her on Instagram.

I loved seeing her quilting, too.

Sorry about all the shadows — the lights were bright and helpful, otherwise!

Star Quilt, by Anna Helena Abreau. Machine pieced and quilted.

Dresden Flowers, by Ana Helena Abreau. Machine pieced and quilted.

Magic Cubes, machine pieced and quilted. Details of quilts, below:

And that’s it!

(Yes, I was the ham in my family.) It’s almost closing time, and we still have to meet up with our daughter and granddaughters and find some dinner. I’ve already put a wish out there to come back for their 30th anniversary of the show in 2025, and to enjoy this beautiful valley one more time. Happily, we’ve made our plans and our reservations and we’re set. See you in September!

Happy Quilting in a Different Land–

To get to the Alsace region:

We fly Delta from our nearest city direct to Paris. Land. Clear customs, and walk towards the train out along the long hallway following the signs, and take the escalator downstairs. Stop at Paul for refreshments, if you want it. Their food is consistently delicious. We use our Apple watches to pay for things in Europe; they are pretty seamless and common and it’s nice not to have to change big sums of cash.

Wait for the train to Strasbourg to flash up on the overhead screen, and then with ticket in hand, check-in and head downstairs.

We took the train to Strasbourg, about a 2-1/2 hour ride. Yes, we were just exhausted but a nap on the train helped get us through. We arrived to an old station completely encased in plexiglass gift-wrapping, or so it felt. We picked up rental cars there for the drive to our hotel in Mittelwihr, about another 35 minutes.

This past trip, after our time in Alsace we headed back to Paris, because why not Paris? and then flew home from there. There are a lot of hotels in the Colmar and SMAM-region. We find Booking.com to be a helpful site. But if you want to go — get your airfare now, your hotels now, and then get the rental car and the train tickets. While I can’t plan your trip for you, I’m happy to answer general questions. And if you can’t make it this year, plan for next!