It's "Leaf Looker" time in Asheville, Festival and Market Time in Houston and beginning November 12 it will be Alliance Quilt Auction time on eBay! Our sixth contest and auction, "Home Is Where the Quilt Is," attracted 119 miniature masterpieces from quiltmakers in the U.S. and across the world. The quilts are finishing up their national exhibition tour with Original Sewing & Quilt Expo, and each has been documented in The Quilt Index. As a collection, they tell a vivid story of Home each unique but with many common threads. Most of the contest artists recorded their artist's statements with the help of our partners at VoiceQuilt.com. You can listen to these audio segments on the webpage for each quilt in the "Home" contest gallery. Handi Quilt Grand Prize winner Margarita Korioth's quilt and audio artist's statement can be viewed and listened to here.


To view the 29 quilts offered in Week One of the "Home" auction visit our Flickr page. Or grab your virtual passport and join us for a field trip to the homes of our Week One artists by watching this video on our YouTube channel. Flickr galleries for weeks 2-4 will be available later this week.

"Home Is Where the Quilt Is" Auction Week One Passport

Here are the dates for each auction week.
The bidding for each quilt will start at $50 and each 7-day auction week starts and ends at 9:00 pm Eastern. Search "Quilt Alliance" on ebay.com during the auction period for that quilt. Please note: Before and after the auction period the quilts are not viewable (eBay only posts items included in live auctions--no archives or scheduled auctions are viewable).

Thanks for viewing the auction quilts! All proceeds from this annual auction support the Alliance's core project, Q.S.O.S., and make our participation in partner projects like The Quilt Index and Quilt Treasures possible.

Quilters Took Manhattan!
Join Us in 2013 in New York City or from Home!

Thanks to everyone who traveled to the Big Apple for our September 15 fundraiser at the Fashion Institute of Technology! This year we had over 250 attendees and 100 more supporters attended the event remotely through the purchase of a Home Ticket. We raised 73% more funds compared to our 2011 event thanks to increased ticket sales and a large team of dynamic sponsors led by Brother and AURIfil.

Meg Cox's interview with Denyse Schmidt (at right) and Jennifer Chiaverini's lecture were fascinating and both artists hung around to sign books and greet fans after the program. Mark Lipinski was not able to attend the event due to illness (which was as disappointing for Mark as for his fans), so Marie Bostwick read a hilarious and bittersweet letter from Mark to all his "Cupcakes."

Feedback from participants has already started shaping our 2013 event--to be held again at FIT. We plan to offer more interactive activities--during the event and with NYC partners that weekend. We have also formed a Home Ticket committee to develop and hone a bigger and better remote offering next year. The date for Quilters Take Manhattan 2013 will be confirmed soon. Hope you can make it--in person or via our home version!

The goody bag for this year's event (below left) contained some beautiful quilt bling. Alliance member Pauline Salzman, who attended via our Home Ticket option, wrote to share this photo (below right) of a quilt she made for her "girls" (if you know Pauline's work, you know she often does incredible portraits of her dogs in fabric) using some of the fabric in her goody bag. She used the Michael Miller Cotton Couture charm squares in this Bonnie Hunter pattern. Love it!

Join us Every Day on the Quilt Index

As many of you know I curate a FaceBook series called On This Day in History Quilts which appears on The Quilt Index and Quilt Alliance Facebook pages on most weekdays. I scour history websites for events that happened on that particular day--from weather to war to religion to popular culture--and then try to match that event with a quilt documented in The Quilt Index.

Monday, October 15th's post marked American actress Penny Marshall's birthday. Marshall is best known for her portrayal of the character Laverne DeFazio on the television series "Laverne and Shirley" (1976-1983). The quilt I spotlighted was "Taos Tapestry" made by Laverne Mathews of Orange, Texas in 1986. This 40" x 37" piece is one of two quilts by Matthews contributed to The Quilt Index by the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky as part of their Founder's Collection project. Laverne is relatively new to Facebook, but with a few tips she was able to find the post and respond to a compliment another quilter had left for her. She also shared the post with her guild and they got a good giggle about the two famous Lavernes.

You never know when I might highlight one of your quilts!

"Like" the Quilt Alliance page and the Quilt Index page to follow along on Facebook. 

Warm regards to all,
Amy

Amy E. Milne, Executive Director

The Alliance for American Quilts

[email protected] 

  

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