Textiles are material evidence of history and culture and can tell us much about trade, religion, traditions, migration, communities, and individuals. The intangible characteristics—the uses, meanings, stories, skills and knowledge about production—associated with these textiles are often integral to the identity and cultural heritage of individuals and communities. 

Every quilt tells a story. 

The Mountain Mist quilt patterns are at the heart of this story.

Beginning in 1929, the Stearns & Foster Company printed a free quilt pattern inside the paper wrapper of each roll of Mountain Mist batting. Some patterns were copied from old quilts and popular new designs of the day. Others were original modern Mountain Mist designs or inspired by current events.

The company had a quilt made from each new pattern. These quilts became the centerpiece of advertisements and the stars in quilt shows and department store windows.

The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, took more lives than any other single human-engineered event before on United States soil. News media broadcast the sights, sounds, and voices of the day, inscribing the tragedy into the memory of viewers. The human process of collectively mourning our losses and sharing our comfort began immediately.

For more than three decades, Karey Bresenhan and Nancy O'Bryant Puentes have purchased studio art quilts for their Quilts, Inc. corporate collection, mostly from exhibitions at the Houston International Quilt Festival. Founded by Karey Bresenhan in 1974, the festival quickly became a destination for quilters from around the world. 

Fifty years ago, no one bothered pairing the adjective Amish with the noun quilt. Few people outside Amish settlements knew there was anything distinct about the types of patchwork bedcovers Amish families kept folded in cedar chests or displayed on their guest beds. Yet in the intervening years, Amish quilts have shifted in status from obscurity to sought-after artworks.

“The show is objects in space and sculpture, and it removes the pre-conception of quilts as private and valueless.”
– Luke Haynes

“These works reveal an overarching awareness on the part of the artists of the cycles of creation and destruction that bring about change. Each, in its way, communicates a sense of the fragility and poignancy of our human condition.

“The art speaks of the passage of time and how we assemble meaning from experience.... Additional layers of interpretation are exposed when we see these works in the context of current cultural turmoil. This informed my thinking as I reviewed the submissions.”

— Risë Nagin, December 2016
Juror’s Statement

Sponsored by the Japan Handicraft Instructors’ Association, an organization promoting handcraft arts through training and publications in Japan for more than 45 years, the Quilt Japan competition began in 1989 and became an international competition in 2005. The biennial contest is the largest in Japan and one of the most prestigious in the world. Only original works that have neither been previously exhibited nor published are accepted for judging.

On August 21, Lincoln will experience its first total eclipse in recorded history. While solar eclipses occur about once every 18 months, they are typically only seen in a specific area once every 375 years. To celebrate this moment, the International Quilt Museum will open a special pop-up exhibition of quilts August 18-20 in the Dillow Conservation Work Room.

The first 1970s quilt I bought reminded me of my childhood, especially summers spent at the community pool. As I accumulated more quilts—many made from polyester double-knit fabrics—the critics had plenty to say. People would actually make faces when I talked about polyester quilts. I didn’t care. I was enthralled. When I started bringing the quilts to show-and-tell with the local quilt guild, they were better appreciated. Part of that was generational—the group had a sense of Modern art, and the quilts’ aesthetic prompted a certain nostalgia in people who had come of age in the 1970s.