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)

European Patchwork Meeting · Quilt Shows · Travels

Carrefour 2024: Quilts III

October 20, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.9 Comments

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.

I love the line up of old-fashioned metal lawn chairs, both on the bottom and on the top. She used her own line of fabric in the white circles, and it’s a favorite fabric of mine. And — sorry to say — I didn’t stop to take a photo of this title card. I wrote to her and she gave me the title: “Polka Dot Garden Party.”

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.)

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!

Classes · Quilt Shows · Quilts

Oh, yeah. My take on QuiltCon.

March 17, 2016March 17, 2016 Elizabeth E.17 Comments

This popped up in my email one morning, and it about wraps it all up, as far as I’m concerned. No, I never met Claudia, but I did meet a few other fine quilters, including some from different countries than California. (That was a joke, people.)

Since it’s been over a month since QuiltCon, I thought I should get around to writing about my impressions. The show was held in Pasadena, California and the Registration Desk, Vendor Mall, part of the quilt show, and lecture room were in one building.

Across the courtyard was a large older room with high clerestory windows (building behind these banners) where the rest of the quilts were, and to the other side of that, was the building where the classes were held. While pretty close together, I did miss Austin’s intimacy, but the great part about being here was that the weather was unseasonably warm which made everyone except those Californians happy (we want rain).

Silliest moment for me:

Hollering Polo! to Eileen’s (@luckycharm93635) Marco! as we bumbled out of the restaurant after topping off our 50/50 burgers with a bacon-brownie. And yes, we did the Marco! Polo! thing all conference long, whenever we’d see each other.

Moment when I realized that none of us quilters ever charge enough for our quilts:

When, during our From Maker to Making a Living class, I glimpsed the majesty of Jacqueline Sava’s spreadsheets and listened to her funny and wonderful stories about making a living. She’s the SOAK lady, and to support her, I went down to the selling floor and bought a bottle of Flatter, in the Fig flavor. So so yummy-smelling and it works, too. A whiff of it and it brings back that class and the belief that I, too, can be as successful as she is. Kidding.

Moment when I realized that I’ve missed mucking around in paint all my whole life:

In Lizzy House’s block printing class. Even though I was beyond tired (and I’m pretty sure she was too), we had a great class of doodling, carving, printing, sharing. This was my last class of QuiltCon, and after this, I met up with Lisa and Simone and we drove the 90 minutes home. We’d stayed for two days and two nights, beginning with an early morning (up at 4:30 a.m.) on Thursday, and ending Saturday night.

Moment when I realized that my QuiltCon experience had shifted from taking classes, to hobnobbing with the Women of QuiltCon:

This is the only photo I have of me ( at the end of the table, nearly on Lorena’s lap) and Lisa (third down on the right, with glasses and blonde hair) and Simone (second down on the right, with brown hair). The rest of the time we passed like ships in the night, or sat next to each at lectures. I met several quilters I’d only followed on blogs or on IG, and deepened friendships with many of these fine women.

Moment when I realized that quilting connections could be made from other subjects:

Lecture Notes — Simone’s notes from Victoria Findlay-Wolfe’s lecture

One of the highlights for me at QuiltCon this year were the lectures, and Bill Kerr’s lecture in particular. I filled pages of notes of him talking about the branching connections we make from the choices that come into our creative lives, and he used Frank Lloyd Wright’s homes around Chicago as an example. Victoria’s lecture was also good, as were Luke Haynes (I wish I could have gone out to see his exhibit of fifty log cabin quilts) and others. Usually I hit the vending floor’s mix of lectures, but hardly made it to any this year, and the ones I did, I thought sounded like commercials.

And in other ways (witness my badge collection):

Some QuiltCon eye candy is this tote bag and the signature quilt (hanging below).

Moment when I learned I should have left class at noon, like my buddy Martie did:

This was in our third conference/discussion of the day in a class where I found I was more interested in learning about how to make a panorama photo on my iPhone, than in listening to the adroit conference/discussion by our very well-learned teacher. When you know you are just done with a technique, it should be okay to go. The teacher was fabulous. I wasn’t, obviously. If I’d left, maybe I would have seen more of the quilts.

Moment when I realized that creativity was all around me, and I was slightly besotted by it all:

(That’s besotted using the archaic definition) Glimpsing the fabulous booth from our Los Angeles shop, Sew Modern. That camper!

Moment when I found my personal Best of Show quilt, and wanted to grow up and be Yvonne Fuch (@quiltingjetgirl):

Happy Moment:

Lots and lots of them, but especially when I turned the corner and saw my quilt Focus in Paintbrush Studio’s booth. Thank you Paintbrush! It’s made from Paintbrush Studio’s line of solids, Painter’s Palette Solids, and I used the leftovers from making them a quilt for their booth at market, which will remain under wraps until then. (Well, okay. Maybe just one sneak peek…)

Another set of happy moments was finding quilts in the show from people I knew, and also when Cindy Wiens showed me the quilt she’d made for Lucien fabrics, using another design of mine, Semaphore:

Yes, I couldn’t find the photo I’d snapped one late night in her room, so I borrowed this one from her website. And here’s another of hers, hanging in the show:

Moment when I realized that I should skip going to Savannah-QuiltCon-East2017 and just stay home and sew:

When breezing through my Instagram feed, where I’d posted most of the quilts, and realized if I was ever to get a quilt in this show, I’d better stay home and get busy. So next year, I’ll be at QuiltNon, home and grateful for the chance I had to go this year, and looking forward to QuiltConWest in 2018!

Final Thoughts:

Most of the quilts I found fascinating are on my Instagram feed, to the right. Scroll back through the feed to see them, or follow me on Instagram (@occasionalpiecequilt) and see them that way. Take screen shots of the ones you love, compile your own QuiltCon collection and use them to inspire you further!