Carrefour 2024: Quilts V

October 26, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

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 we’re heading into the Let’s Have Some Fun section. I loved this family tree, of sorts. It’s named, simply, Embroidered Portraits, and is by Justine & COW. I found her on Instagram, and a post from the time of this show said:

“Obviously, my Amish friends are my Amish.”
SMAM, the cradle of the Amish movement.

(SMAM = Sainte-Marie-Aux-Mines)

Take some time to visit her IG and be prepared for some lovely embroidery from the Alsace region of France (where this quilt show is held). Detail from her IG post is below.

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.

It was lovely. Our trip tag on Instagram. This post shows the whole arrival steps. I think once you get over the whole “it’s so far away” business, the journey becomes an adventure.

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!

European Patchwork Meeting · Quilt Shows · Travels

Carrefour 2024: Quilts IV

October 25, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

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

Espace D’Exposition (Venue 11): Quilt en rêve (remakes of antique quilts), France Aubert (Passion for Samplers), Selma Huisman-Hilderbrand (Walk Down Memory Lane)
Église St. Blaise (Venue 7): Virginie Peyre

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.

In Venue 11 (Espace Commercial) there was enough room to do several exhibits. This quilt is from Quilt en rêve, “an association of British, Dutch and American antique quilt enthusiasts. Some of them have been quilting for over 30 years, always conscious of working in a traditional way, paying attention to detail, the choice of fabric and hand sewing” (from here). (UPDATE: I heard from one of the members, Gabrielle Paquin, and she wrote that currently “the team is essentially French and we have an Hollander lady with us.”)

Michigan, a quilt by Martine Crabé-Lanux (from France), who was inspired by a quilt from the 1850s. The center is a sailor’s compass, with other details of soldiers carrying flags and Masonic symbols. The quilter designed the floral border and other details.

Aline Joulin, from France, was inspired by an 1880’s log cabin from Connecticut and named it Noyank. These more than 500 small blocks are made on muslin, and the placement of the red “lends a balance to the whole. The quilt is knotted.”

While the maker and the Instagram of Quilt en rêve calls this “Wedding Rings in Blue,” in America we typically call this Pickle Dish (Brackman numbers 304 and 305).
Made by Gabrielle Paquin (France), this is entirely made by hand.

Kiosque, by Jacqueline Audouin-Dubreuil (France). She made this boutis quilt entirely by hand, 10 stitches per centimeter, 600 meters of thread, taking approximately 2000 hours of work. The base cloth is a teal blue, and the design is by Hubert Valéri. Click any photo in the gallery to enlarge.

Helma Huisman-Hildebrand, from Holland, also had her own exhibit. She “works and lives on a cargo ship which operates on the rivers and channels throughout Europe. Together with her husband, they operate as captains on their ship and run their shipping company. In her spare time, she loves to make antique looking quilts, from the 1830s to the early 1900s. Due to a lack of space, she works in her kitchen on the ship. She constructs the quilts by machine, given her limited amount of time, yet hand-quilts them” (from the catalogue).

The quilt above is titled Forever Touching Stars: “I was ‘star-strucked’ seeing this quilt in Nel Kooiman’s collection, and luckily she gave me permission to remake it. The original quilt was made around 1880 in Kentucky.” (from title card)

Here is a gallery of her quilts, with title cards and some details shots. They are all magnificent! (Click on the arrows in the middle on the sides, to advance the slides.)

France Albert, shown above by one of her quilts, has a passion for samplers, so they put a grouping of her work in the show. That is not all she can do, but see that color of her sweater? She calls it “duck blue” and it’s her favorite. So many of her quilts are hand-pieced and hand-quilted. Here are two galleries (click to enlarge any quilt).

(from top to bottom, left to right):

Row 1: Suzanna, Karen B (an homage to Karen Blixen in combining sampler blocks in the color blue-gray for Denmark)

Row 2: Rose (sixteen traditional square blocks redesigned as rectangular blocks), Welcome (a small sampler created to represent their move to the Ille de France region), Maisons & Jardins (Houses and Gardens)

Row 3: Henrietta (thirteen blocks from the “Antebellum” block of the month from Barbara Brackman, along with twelve additional appliqué blocks.)

(from top to bottom, left to right):

Row 1: Juliette (a tribute to her grandmother, with rectangular blocks, 113 mother-of-pearl buttons, and the use of the color violet, the color of feminism)

Row 2: Moutarde (she had to hunt for fabrics, using 26 of them in the end), Toiles Plumetées Automne (feathered star in autumn colors), and her handwork, resting on the top of her chair at her table.

Row 3: Nora (quilting done by Mom Quilts; this is a reproduction of an antique quilt from Virginia in the 1840s). What I noticed was even though the quilting was done by a long-armer, she went in and hand-stitched around each circle.

She had a card up at the beginning of the exhibit. Thank you, Google Translate, for letting me know what it said.

Note the use of her buttons along the outside binding.

This is known as the King George Reviewing the Volunteers quilt, housed in the V & A Museum in London. It was the inspiration for two of her other quilts (shown below). Yes, all those tiny circles were English Paper-pieced. Click on the link above to see more photos and read more about it.

Improbables (Click to enlarge quilt on the left.)

Title: Sarah

She writes on her title card that this is “a passion for round blocks in the gypsy spirit.” I love that border!

Ecrit avec des fleurs (Written with Flowers). She writes “my hobbies written with only floral fabrics.” A self-declaration that could apply to so many of us.

By the way, this is where we were, just up from the dismantled Eiffel Tower.

More scenery. The little yellow church was Venue 7, with Virginie Peyre. One of her quilts is below. And the other was a World War I memorial, something we see in a lot of churches in Europe, as it ravaged the towns and villages.

Tapis Volant

She writes: “As a gift, I received an avalanche of ribbons intended for confectionery; this sudden abundance, plus the novelty of the material, put me in a trance! I pleat, bubble, pucker, weave, accumulate, saturate, letting pleasure be my guide.”

It was certainly novel!

We’re catching the late afternoon sun and it’s beautiful.

Yes, it’s late and we’re tired, meaning on that day in the past, it was time to get back to our hotel, check in with our daughter and our granddaughters, find some dinner, and a good night’s sleep. I will slide in more quilts to this blog at a later date (yes, I have more), but for now, we’ll leave me there on the steps saying “Are we done yet?”

Thanks for reading and for writing–I have so enjoyed seeing your reactions to these wonderful quilts!

Carrefours European Patchwork Meeting sitemap (in case you need to look up the artists)

Mystery Quilt · Quilt Shows

Road to California 2022 • Part II

January 27, 2022September 13, 2025 Elizabeth E.17 Comments

Road Two of Road to California Quilts. You may want to do this in two bites, but we still have Part III coming, focusing on some specialty exhibits (it’s shorter). Click on any image to make it larger, then hit the small X in the upper right to return to this page.

Thought I’d lead with a high-impact quilt.

I just want to know how she kept track of all the circles. Sometimes I wish they’d tell us how long a quilt took, but maybe I don’t want to know.

I liked the shape of the White Spotted Rose Anemone, by Kelly Spell. I kept wondering what the next wave of ~~covid~~ quilting was going to look like, and perhaps these curves against those lines might be an indication: texture?

Now I know what to do with all those labels in my notions drawer that I’ve been saving. I’m pretty sure I could get a pincushion covered…

Road to California has lights at the base of each quilt, and those lower lights really give a sculptural quality to the stitching.

I have a such admiration for all the detail in this quilt:

All those little houses everywhere, and patchwork flags! As a reminder: click on any image to make it larger, then hit the small X in the upper right to return to this page.

Click to see the teensy-weensy strips in this pineapple block. It was in an exhibit labeled Pride.

I appreciate the humor in this quilt. The exhibit was titled Conspiracy Theory Challenge, and most were clever but political (so.tired.of.that). So I focused in on this scene with cows being lifted heavenward by UFOs.

A perfect quilt for this year, but I think the message does not just stop there. That’s one of the interesting things about quilt shows. I see the expression of quilters being themselves, making their art the way they see it. We have all kinds in a show like Road (which is why it is one of my favorites). They strive to represent art, modern, traditional and I like that many quilts which I’d never see are sent to this show. I get to “meet” a lot of new quilters who have chosen the motto “Be You.”

Love the phone in the back pocket, along with scissors.

Pretty sure that fish lady is made of milagros, but not certain. This one and the one below appear to be about 17″ tall, a foot wide, but I’m guessing.

I love the little peoples everywhere.

Last of the smallish quilts. I thought her treatment of the “fringe” was lovely.

This was such an interesting quilt, made with six colors, and shades of gray, black and white.

Making a whole cloth quilt seems like such a challenge.

I loved the eyes, so I made that the big image in this gallery of Road quilts. The full quilt is on the lower left. I never saw the back of the piece; wish I had!

Not square! (big smile)

Colors!! No, they don’t have chains to keep the quilts from running away. Something about protecting the quilts and fire-marshall-said-so business.

Simple shapes, bold colors, value contrast, great design = smashing quilt.

This quilt, made and quilted by Zena Thorpe, is titled Connectivity. I kept zeroing in to see the quilting, as well as the appliqué. She doesn’t say how she did it, but it looks handsewn. Beautiful work.

We’re almost done!

I also wish they’d put the size of quilts on the title card. I’m guessing this is about 24″ tall. Gorgeous work by both artists.

I’ve been focusing on gardens lately [with the Mystery Quilt of Heart’s Garden I’m hosting (free! on this website!]) so I really loved all the details of Hanne Lohde’s quilt in memory of her summer home in Denmark.

And the final quilt in this post is from Janet Stone–who else to lead us out? By the way, it was also a big prize winner at Houston 2021, and their photo is quite a bit better than mine.

And that’s a wrap for this segment. Next post I’ll have the Cherrywood Diana Quilts, a few pieces of clothing, and quilts from artist Linda Anderson.

Thanks for all your comments last go-round. I tripped on my stairs and slugged the wall accidentally, so haven’t had use of my right hand for a few days, but I didn’t want you to think I hadn’t enjoyed your comments. The hand is getting better. I said to my husband, I may be older, but now it is obvious to me that all the guys in the movies are pulling their punches and not making contact. Now that we never leave our homes, does this mean we’ll have higher incidents of injuries in the home? Hope not. We don’t need to add one more thing to our list of Bad Stuff for the Covid Years.

And speaking of that, I also find it interesting that I didn’t see any visual representations of covid. Not one. I’ve always enjoyed Becky Goldsmith’s covid quilt (above), made right at the beginning of our pandemic, and since we are just past the 2nd anniversary of the first diagnosed case of covid, I thought we’d see more. I once drew up a sketch, but decided I didn’t want to spend my time making it. If I do anything, I’ll do hers (it’s a free download on her website; link above).

I’ve had several hundred downloads of the free mystery quilt-a-long of Heart’s Garden, so those of you who are making that, good luck with your EPP sewing. Our hashtag Instagram online is:

Yes, with the heart. I’m finalizing Part II of the mystery, which will drop in February.

Happy Quilting!

European Patchwork Meeting · Quilts · Textiles & Fabric

Gabrielle Paquin: Design and Graphics

October 1, 2017June 28, 2025 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

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

Moseying along the main street, we headed to Site #7, the Eligse St-Louis, where I wanted to see the French quilter Gabrielle Paquin. Previous to this, in my hotel room in Geneva, I had previewed all the exhibits, looking up the artists and deciding which ones interested me. Paquin was one of them.

I had seen photos of previous years’ exhibits, and the fact that many of them were in churches. But it just doesn’t prepare you for the juxtaposition of the sacred and the quilting, the symbols of religious life coupled with the themes and ideas and colors and patterns of the quilts along the sanctuary walls. It was wonderful.

She spoke some English, and agreed to pose with me. Check out her sweater.

In her biography, she writes:

“For several years, I studied drawing and painting in a school of Fine Arts, my first vocation, and since then, I practice painting as an amateur. Simultaneously, I realized traditional patchworks inspired by American models large format of the 18th and 19th centuries.

“This practice evolved towards the contemporary patchwork and the textile art that I have been practicing assiduously for ten years, thanks to a constant inspiration and stimulated by the numerous exhibitions proposed with selection by a jury of artists and curators of museums.”

You can start to get a sense of the materials that Paquin works in: striped cloth. In this one, she uses larger pieces that her usual strips, and has appliquéd them down to the background with a satin stitch on her machine. I like her small monogram in the lower right corner.

EPM Paquin_3a — *Twilight and Stripes*, 2008 (?)

I didn’t quite catch the name of this one (top, and detail, bottom), but it shows her use of her striped material. I kept wondering if she cut up old shirts, or old clothing, or haunted fabric shops to find all these variations.

I was impressed with the quilting on this piece, as it gave me great ideas.

All the placards were in French, so I’m using Google Translate to write them in English, plus heading over to her website where she has some of these quilts.

She has found so many ways to use this fabric; I didn’t include all her quilts in this series, but many of them.

EPM Paquin_7 — *Two Black Sisters*, 2016.

What a huge impact the simple reversal of value (light-dark) can make!

EPM Paquin_9asite
Looking towards the back of the church. She is sitting there at the table with the white tablecloth, waiting for people to come and talk with her.