New York Beauties took a long time to get here: about three years. Started in 2022 from the spark of an idea, with a pillow of four New York Beauty blocks, it quickly morphed to quilt size, with a series of block tutorials. Then it moved from there to the new rage of freezer-paper piecing, tired as we were of ripping off papers from the back of our precision piecing.
While that took some time, to get all those blocks designed and drafted, then figure out a tutorial, then make the required number — it seemed to take longer to quilt it myself. Every block called for a new idea, a new way to outline the rays, or fill in the backgrounds, or sculpt the arcs. Many times I seriously doubted I was up to the task.
I unpicked some areas and re-did them. I’m still not sure about some of them, but it’s time to let this rest.
Quilt #300 Started June 2022 • Finished September 2025, with the label being sewn on this afternoon.
I’ve learned a lot about what colors are my favorites (butter yellow seems to be right up there, along with a bluey aqua).
I found out my machine’s limitations. Neither it — nor I — are high-precision longarm machines, although we do our best.
I remembered that sometimes simple borders are best, and that a ruler and a disappearing marker can get those designs sewn into cloth.
I thought about my very own New York beauty, born in the Empire State. She has fallen in the love with the Big Apple (New York City’s nickname) and tries to go there often. This quilt is for her….
…from me, her mother.
I was stitching the binding down while we were at her house this past week, so yes, you do see little binding clips. Kinda’ adds to the color, don’t you think? But I didn’t want to leave without a picture of her with this quilt, since the full title is:
Usually I do a round-up of blog posts at the end of a Quilt Finish, but this time I’ll just send you up to the New York Beauties page with everything listed, including a free block or two. The rest of them are in the pattern, found in my pattern shop on PayHip.
I will say that the border was cut 5″ wide, then mitered on. I will probably update the pattern at some point in the future, complete with new photos, etc. If you have purchased it, you can re-download it. I’ll announce it on here.
Lastly, I am now working on a visual index for my quilt blog. It’s called Blog Index, and it’s up at the top.
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.
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.
Alexandra, by France Aubert
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)
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.
(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.)
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.
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 