Quilters Take Raleigh: A Quilt Alliance Benefit  

at Original Sewing & Quilt Expo   

This summer Original Sewing & Quilt Expo will hold its first show at the new Raleigh Convention Center, featuring a benefit night for the Alliance for American Quilts (Quilt Alliance).  

On Friday, June 22nd in Raleigh, North Carolina, Expo attendees can opt for a special package ticket ($45) that includes 1-day Expo admission and a ticket to the Quilters Take Raleigh dessert reception and program beginning at 7 pm. The event is sponsored by FreeSpirit and Rowan, the premier fabric brands of Westminster Lifestyle Fabrics headquartered in Charlotte, N.C.  

"Setting trends are what Westminster's Rowan and FreeSpirit brands are all about.  It is natural fit for both of our fabric brands to be a part of this exhilarating event and to offer our support to the important work of the Quilt Alliance," said Joyce Robertson, Vice President of Global Design & Marketing for Westminster Lifestyle Fabrics.

Tickets are available now on Original Sewing & Quilt Expo's website.    

Quilters Take Raleigh attendees will enjoy sweet delights and coffee as they mingle with other quiltmakers and quilt enthusiasts from all aspects of the craft. The evening culminates with a dynamic panel presenting "Show and Tell from a Bird's Eye View: Trendspotting Across the Quilt World," a lively discussion of where quilting has been, where we are now, and where we're headed.

The "Show and Tell" panel will be moderated by John Adams, Quilt Dad blogger, and co-founder of the popular e-magazine for modern quilters, Fat Quarterly.
Panelists include:

Cathy Alston-Kearney, a member of the Heritage Quilters, an Eastern NC group doing great things with quilts, charity and community activism

Beth Hayes, McCall's Quilting Editor-in-Chief and longtime quilter, designer and teacher

Cathy McKillip, owner of the Wish Upon a Quilt online store and Raleigh shop

Tula Pink, FreeSpirit fabric designer, exhiled rock princess and lifetime quiltmaker

Christine Zoller, a fiber artist and Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Textile Program at Eastern Carolina University.

FreeSpirit fabric designer Tula Pink

Original Sewing & Quilt Expo is providing support and venue space for the benefit and special activities during the show, which runs June 21-23, including:

• The premier of Home is Where the Quilt Is, the collection of 2012 Alliance contest and auction quilts--all house-shaped this year.
• Video clips from Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories interviews. Q.S.O.S., a project of the Alliance, is the largest grassroots oral history effort about quiltmakers.
• World launch of the Alliance's new program, "Go Tell It At the Quilt Show," 5-minute quilt-and-owner interviews designed to document and preserve stories of quilts via personal accounts from the maker or owner. The Go Tell It videos will be shared via the Alliance's website and future plans for the program include public submission of home video.   

The Alliance for American Quilts, a nonprofit organization founded in 1993 by Karey Bresenhan, Nancy O'Bryant Puentes, Eunice Ray and Shelly Zegart, supports and develops projects to document, preserve, and share the history of quilts and quiltmakers. The Alliance brings together groups and individuals from the creative, scholarly and business worlds of quiltmaking to advance the recognition of quilts and their makers in American culture.