Carrefour VI: RachelDaisy Dodd, Ruth De Voss, Lorena Uriarte, Diane First, France Patchwork & Ulla Hoppe

February 12, 2026February 12, 2026 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

This is the sixth, and final post about the Carrefour European Patchwork show 2025. The post covers:

• Venue 13: Villa Burrus, with RachaelDaisy Dodd
• Venue 14: Église de l’Assomption, with Ruth De Vos
• Venue 15: Salle Polyvalente, with Lorena Uriarte, Dianne Firth, ASL Liépvre, EQA, France Patchwork
• Venue 16: Ulla Hoppe

I have a main Carrefour Quilt Show page that lists all the posts of all the meetings I’ve gone to, and includes the posts from this year too. If I haven’t mentioned it before, you might enjoy these posts more if seen on a desktop computer or even a tablet. Cell phones re-format the layout and can sometimes do strange things to how it looks on the screen.

If you are interested in going to Carrefour, I wrote two posts for them about our travel, and how we put the trip together. You can find them here and here. Their main website is HERE, where you can subscribe to their newsletter (scroll to the bottom).

Thank you so much for reading and traveling along with me by way of these posts. Enjoy!

This venue, Villa Burrus, was just a few short steps from the Party Room (Salle Des Fêtes, from the previous post) and although we’ve been to Carrefour twice before, it was new to us.

Sited on Le Parc de las Villa Burrus, this mansion was built in 1900, at least as I can figure out for the literature we picked up was all in French, printed for their Patrimonie — or Heritage — Days, when many buildings are open to the public. Whatever its origins, it was a great place to see quilts, and RachaelDaisy Dodd had her solo exhibit here.

She was always thronged by, and visiting with, quilters, so I’m afraid I didn’t get the best photos of her. But her we go with some of her quilts.

In the front hallway, just across from where her table was, and I apologize, but I have no title card for this.

Her signature is a variation of the pine cone (or pine burr) block.

Followed by another motif she commonly uses: the yo-yo, a gathered circle with the gathers on the top.

Title: Yo-Yo Bloom
Title Card: “Yo-Yo Blooms is a quilt designed to make you smile and to celebrate just how fun Suffolkd Puff Yo-Yos can be! The quilt brings together all my favorite elements: happy colors, cheerful fabrics, playful Ric-Rac, my signature pieced Yo-Yos and big flowers. Which is your favorite Yo-Yo bloom?”
Technique: Yo-Yo Suffolk Puffs, Appliqué, Machine Piecing.

Several rooms held her quilts, with large moveable frameworks. In the next room, the frame was set up in the center, and the large mirrors and windows and her quilts all echoed with pattern and color.

Click to enlarge.

Where does she get all her ric-rac? I think a lot of it is vintage, as she alludes to in her title card.

This one was always hard to get a photograph of. I also kind of liked that the man is carrying his wife’s (his??) purse.

Yo-yos galore, along with doilies and appliqué; she is not a minimalist, and I love it all.

Apologies: no title card. But what do you think? Did she quilt the background, and then add the giant circular pine burr blocks afterwards? My brain is always whirling with questions at these shows.

Another scrap quilt, another inspiration.

A couple of random tourists, haha.

I just saw a smaller version of this on my friend’s IG feed. Link. Makes me want to put it in the queue for a handwork project while traveling to Pour l’Amour du Fills in Nantes in 2016.

We only noticed two of the triptych of quilts. Click to enlarge the title cards and banner quilts. These were hanging by the entry/exit hall, and we were on our way out.

Loved her dress. I need to get a patchwork-appropriate dress for quilt shows.

The small towns of Val d’Argent; we are currently in Sainte Croix-aux-Mines, heading to Lièpvre. The church above is Église St. Nicolas, venue 11, written about in the previous Carrefour post.

This reminds us that this portion of France went back and forth between Germany and France several times. If you’ve traveled in this area, it gives you an appreciation for the diverse, yet subtle differences between these neighboring countries (and add in Switzerland, too).

Venue 14: Église de l’Assomption, with Ruth De Vos

A small church in the town of Lièpvre, one of two sites in this village. Inside were new works from Ruth De Voss, she of flower fame. You can find her on Instagram @ruthdevosart.

Now she has turned her piecing and printing and surface decoration skills from flowers to children. Her children, which I loved. Many women seem to avoid this side of their lives, and often in the art world they are expected to, but De Voss celebrates it.

(click to enlarge) The church had many of her art pieces; I’m only showing a selection. They were colorful, drawn with strong lines.

Click on small arrows to advance this slideshow to see more of her pieces.

Venue 15: Salle Polyvalente, with Lorena Uriarte, Dianne Firth, ASL Liépvre, EQA, France Patchwork

Lorena Uriarte is a well-known Australian quilter, who has been active in teaching, making patterns, and championing good design in quilts for years. You can follow her on Instagram @lorena_in_syd, as well as enjoy her quilts, below.

Title: Wingdings: A Variety of Symbols
Title Card: This quilt “is my red and white interpretation of Chuck Nohara’s Symbol Quilt Using self-drafter blocks from her book 2001 New Patchwork patterns, I explored every piecing technique to create a playful and personal visual language.”
Techniques: Hand and Machine; Quilted by Michele Mason

She had a range of her quilts hanging in this venue; they had a bold and colorful impact.

France Patchwork, and others

As always, France Patchwork, the national quilting guild, had a few quilts on display.

“France Patchwork is the French quilting guild, with over 6,000 members. Founded in 1984 and still thriving thanks to its volunteers, its mission is to promote quilting and its various forms through competitions, Friendship Days, and a quarterly magazine: Les Nouvelles de France Patchwork (from website).

They can be found on Instagram @france_patchwork_news. Happily this year I was there early enough to snag one of their tote bags. (One can never have too many tote bags!)

The quilting is done by hand, with heavier thread, and is more spare. I believe these quilts are the cover quilts for their magazine, Les Nouvelles, but I can’t find any working links to their magazine or their organization, beyond the Instagram account.

I wonder if Françoise Rigaud is with the group quilt_en_reve on Instagram? If so, they always do such beautiful work in making reproductions of antique quilts. They had a display in 2024 at Carrefours, and I wrote about them here.

I loved the use of that ombre fabric in the one block. Gabrielle Paquin is a favorite of mine; I saw her the first time I went to Carrefour (link) and began to see I had a lot to discover and learn about our beloved patchwork.

I recognized the France Patchwork logo in the center of the quilt.

And I loved the combination of appliqué and these interesting little butterflies.

A tribute to Japan, from France Patchwork.

Title: Koïnobori
Artist: Tom Mace, France
This is from the category of “Les Jeunes Poussent” in the grouping In the Land of the Rising Sun, and was in the age group of 10-13 years old. (Literally it translates to “The Youth Are Growing.”)

The Challenge 5-25 was to encourage the interest of the youth. The website says:

“For the 30th anniversary of the European Patchwork Meeting event, we’re inviting budding artists and young prodigies to take part in the “HEROES” competition, inspired by those people and characters they admire, on screen or in real life.

The challenge is to create a patchwork quilt: a work made up of different pieces of fabric, illustrating the theme of heroes. Think of everyday heroes and heroines, cartoon characters, bright colors and comic books for inspiration!”

Diane Firth

And now, for a complete change of pace in quilting, here are some transparent quilts made by Diane Firth, of Australia. This is titled Scatter, which was inspired by the dispersal of seeds.” The title card also notes, under techique, “Assembled and Machine stitched on Bernina 770.”

Title: Bogong
Description: The moths emerge from the black soils
Technique: Machine and hand-stitched

Bogong is a type of moth.

Title: Floriade #4
Description: Floral Abundance
This black mesh netting was in several of her pieces, holding the circles (which looked like felt) in place. The Carrefour website says this about Diane: “Dianne Firth, a quilter for almost 50 years, is a landscape architect and academic. She exhibits regularly in juried exhibitions and her works are held in public and private collections around the world.” The OZquilt Network has a page about her where you can read more.

Title: Black Mountain
Description: An exploration of changing landform
This is one of the larger pieces, but the entire display was intriguing and again made me ask the question about what is a quilt? Clearly, hers has three layers, but it is so inventive and structural.

EQA: European Quilters Association: Contrasts (2025 Exhibit)

The EQA is a cooperation between the European quilt guilds, and has a yearly challenge of small quilts (35 cm square, which is about 14 inches). As always, I spent a lot of time looking at the artworks. Here’s the Challenge:

(If you right-click to open this in another tab, it may enlarge for you.) What intrigued me was the line in the last paragraph: “Contrasts are a constant given in our daily lives and make up some of the differences between European countries. And yet, when looking at the collection overall we can clearly see that there are not really that many contrast between us after all.”

Here are a few of the many, many wonderful quilts.

After this, we leave the venue and try to decide if we hungry, as this year…they have a full lunch service just outside. Tempting, but we went to the market at the edge of town, grabbed something and drove to Rombach-Le-Franc, the last town. We parked outside the Espace Raymond Hestin, and ate our shared lunch in the car, in the shade as the day had grown hotter.

We were on the last two venues of the show. We’d started the day before, and went through the vendors and other spaces in Sainte Marie-aux-Mines, then headed to Saint Croix-aux-Mines and got to Venue 12, before calling it day and driving back to Colmar.

We got up early the second day, picked up again with the Australian quilters in Venue 12, and progressing through the show. Now, eating lunch there in the parking lot, we talked about if we’d be back next year (no), and what we liked and didn’t like. My husband is a great partner in this adventure and I regularly talk quilting with him. Many of the photos you’ve seen have been taken by him.

Along the road to Romach-le-Franc. We tried for this three times, pulling U-turns to double back to get the wind just right in the banner.

Venue 16: Ulla Hoppe

Here we go! This venue is quite small, and while there were a couple of exhibits there, I’ll mention only one.

Ulla Hoppe, from Germany, was exhibiting her stitching, embroidery. Not quilting, but I thought it was amazing.

The range of blackwork stitches really brings the complexity of the young woman into focus: aren’t we all full of discreet “countless blocks?”

I loved the title of this piece.

“That one” lives across the street from me!

What is notable in this one is the inversion of the stitches, although done in different colors: what is foreground in the black rooster’s image is background in the white rooster’s image. (If you open it in a “new tab” it will be enlarged.)

You can find her on Instagram @ulla_stickt

She even stitched in Dürer’s insignia. Last one:

Title: Der Nobelpreisträger
Artist: Ulla Hoppe, Germany
Description: Nobel Prize winners: often “grey eminences,” yet crowned with gold.
Technique: Gold embroidery, collage, partially gilded

Alas! We could come back in two hours, but alas! alas! we wanted to see another small town on the way home, so we missed seeing Fabia Diniz. We missed a LOT! I went onto the Carrefour website and downloaded this:

I hesitate to put a link because I know they change their website a lot. But head to her Instagram, and click on her Story, Carrefour, and you’ll see her story about coming to France, along with some of her creations.

We drove over the hill, and back down into the next valley on our way to Equisheim.

And this is where we’ll leave our adventure, where the light was just right at the end of the day.

European Patchwork Meeting · Quilts

European Patchwork Meeting • Final Post

October 19, 2017July 1, 2025 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

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

This has a billion pictures, so get ready to scroll. I need to wrap this up and bring my head back to what I’m doing in real life. This is the final post of my visit to the European Patchwork Meeting in the Alsace region of France, this past September. I have a main page that lists all the posts, in case you come at this from a side street on the web.

This quilt show, or meeting, was held in four different towns in France, and I’ll wrap up the first town, Sainte Marie Aux Mines, then move to St. Croix Aux Mines, and finally Liepvre. We didn’t make it to the last town, Rombach le Franc, but Jodie Zolliger, who lives in Europe, has written several great posts about what she saw, including the Amish exhibit. If you are interested, feel free to click over to her blog to catch more.

The Amish exhibit was beautifully laid out in this venue, and as I mentioned, Jodie wrote a great post about it, with better titles and information than I gathered.

We walked down to the Temple Reforme, where the Val Patch Association, the local guild, had an exhibit titled “La Maison,” or Home. All of the quilts in that exhibit centered around the theme of home, showing slices of daily life.

I took a panoramic of the colorful quilts across one side of the church. EPM_Guild3 EPM_Guild2

But fell in love with these panels, made by several members. Jodie has a great post on this one, too.

Off we go to the next town.

I selected to head to the Espace Expositions first, to see the Beauville Company’s exhibition of prints from their archives, but was entranced by the skilled and exquisite use of log cabin construction by Andrée Leblanc in her quilts. I am listing the sizes of the quilts in centimeters, as noted on their title signs. (100 centimeters is roughly equal to 39 inches.)

It was pretty amazing to me how she’s used the width of the strips to create her portraits and pictures. Again, the lighting was superb.

EPM_SCM3 — Professor, 1996 • 76 cm x 100 cm

I laughed at this one, because my husband is a professor (but he doesn’t look like someone out of 10th century Russia, or what I thought this man looked like). Detail of the glasses, below.

EPM_SCM4 — Oasis, 2011 • 103 cm x 103 cm

While this isn’t a figurative portrait, the use of these fabrics was so interesting–not ones you’d associate with creating a design of any kind. Detail, below.

EPM_SCM6 — Colin-Maillard, 1995 • 110 cm x 220 cm

EPM_SCM6a — Colin-Maillard, detail showing fabrics

I like how they’d put other constructions of hers in a tableau on the floor. She had many quilts there.

She was always busy talking to people at her table, so I could only get this sideways shot of her. Her website shows many different parts of her creativity. [update June 2025: the link is broken as she does not appear to have a website anymore.]

We headed down the road, again, to Liepvre (and try as I might, I cannot get my blogging program to allow the accents over their words, so I apologize–it keeps kicking them out when it spellchecks), to the Eglise de l’Assomption where an exhibit of Hildegard Muller (Germany) was hung. The lighting was very “contrasty” so I did a little photoshopping on these to render them closer to what I saw.

EPM_LiepreMuller1 — At the birch grove, 2016 • 102 cm x 70 cm

Detail. She hand-dyed her fabrics and then let her mind find the scene that was in the cloth, or so she told me later, when I asked. However, other times, she had an idea in mind when she was dying the cloth, and made it that way.

EPM_LiepreMuller2 — Love in wartimes, 2015 • 102 cm x 70 cm

EPM_LiepreMuller3 — Dreams of Amsterdam, 2014 • 102 cm x 70 cm

EPM_LiepreMuller3a — Dreams of Amsterdam, detail.

We walked from their to the Exhibition Hall to catch a couple of exhibits; we had to choose as we didn’t have time to see them all. So many of the quilts in this building were perfectly done, all Best-of-Show-type quilts. The one above took my breath away, so I have a few details shots of it. I loved that it was an imitation of one in the Shelbourne Museum — another way our patchwork influence crosses the ocean. The title of the quilt was Marie-Henriette, and was made by Martine Crabe-Lanux.

The Twinkle-Stars Remake Quilt by Helga Huisman Hildebrand was also in the “France Patchwork” association section. There were several countries represented in this hall.

Another France Patchwork quilt, titled Bleus, and made by Maria Vuilleumier.

She also had one done in gray, black and white strips, but that one was called Insomnie, or Insomnia. (Because I’m trying to wrap this up, I’ve heavily edited what I’m posting.)

Last section, last group of quilts is from the Patchwork Gilde of Germany. These quilts blew me away. Every year they have an exhibition and members are asked to enter what they’ve been working on (more info on the placard, below). This grouping was titled “From Tradition to Modernity 21.” Because your scrolling fingers are probably worn out at this point, I’ll post the title and the maker on the quilt; some titles are in German.

EPM_German1 — *Komposition,* by Christa Ebert • 110 x 142 cm

EPM_German2 — *Frau Hansen Klaverquilt*, by Uta Rodemerk • 183 cm square

EPM_German3 — *Mannerschmuck in Frauenhand*, by Sabine Koch

EPM_German3a — Mannerschmuck in Frauenhand, detail

Okay, as near as Google could translate it, I think this means “Men’s Jewelry in Women’s Hand,” which I thought was really clever given that these are neckties.

EPM_German4 — *Ausrangiert-neu sortiert*, by Inge Bohl of Germany

Discarded, rearranged is how Google Translate interprets this title.

EPM_German5 — Zerbrochene Illusionen, by Lilo Hartmann

Zerbrochene Illusionen means Broken Illusions, as translated by Google Translate.

EPM_German5a — Zerbrochene Illusionen, detail

EPM_German6 — The Power of Blue, by Gabriele Schultz-Herzberger • 75 x 132 cm

EPM_German7 — Flussaufwarts, by Susanne Fellmann-Horsch

EPM_German8 — Crazy Canadian Square Dance, by Barber Reschka • 108 x 107 cm

EPM_German9 — Schattenspiel, by Monika Flake • 107 x 131 cm

EPM_German10 — In GrossmuttersNahkastchen gekramt, by Christine Naumann • 78 x 86 cm

EPM_German10a — In GrossmuttersNahkastchen gekramt, detail.

EPM_German11 — So what do you do about it? by Maire-Christine Chammas • 108 x 147 cm

Very cool quilting.

EPM_German12 — Vogelwild III, by Tina Mast • 129 cm x 94 cm

I was told that she teaches art at the local university. This was stunning.

EPM_German13 — Leaves, by Christine Brandstetter • 99 x 132 cm

I talked for a few short minutes to the Uta Lenk, who was the International Representative of the German Patchwork Guild, and she said they would welcome the chance to exhibit at American shows. I know our local show, Road to California, often has exhibits come from other places, and I would love to see these there. I almost joined the German guild, but realized that all their materials would be in German, and alas, I wouldn’t be able to read them, but I did buy a pin.

All in all, going to the European Patchwork Meeting taught me that while we Americans fanned the flames of patchwork, the idea of three layers held together somehow, has taken wings, and taken off. If I were to go again, I’d leave at least two days for the show, and perhaps stay somewhere closer (we stayed the first night in Mulhouse, about an hour away) and in Turckheim the second night (35 minutes away). It’s near Colmar, and there is much to see in that town, as well. And…bring an empty suitcase!