Do you ever travel to Arizona? We'd love to see you at Quilt Camp in the Pines in Flagstaff, July 16-22. If you were in Houston you saw Sharon Schamber's Best of Show quilt - she's teaching for us. Also Barbara Olson, Joan Shay, Elly Sienkiewicz, Laura Wasilowski, John Flynn, Cara Gulati and many more. It's a retreat worth checking out at www.quiltcamp.com.

Hello there! I live in Castellon, Valencia(Spain).I am from Pennsylvania, married to a Spaniard and I love to quilt! I teach, when i am not quilting at a local notions store that also offers'patch' as its called here. We have a nationwide quilters assoc of about 4000members, 'patch' is growing fast here. Its already quite 'big' in France, they have 22, 000members and 2 big anual shows.I have been bouncing all over the 'compu'looking up info on quilt frames and somehow found your blog/site or whatever you call it, it looks interesting! when i get some help from my daughter I'll send you some fotos of our associations last quilt show winners. Take care, M

Hi I found your blog via Technorati.I am not a quilter but I do love quilts especially old ones. I thought you might be interested in this post from my blog It is about "Quilters of Gee's Bend"
It is long so I hope that is ok. If not go to my blog (see above) and check it out.
driftwoodinspiration

Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Quilts of Gee's Bend

The Ladies of Gees Bend are quilters who have recently been "discovered" in Gee's Bend Alabama. The quilters came to my grandchildren's elementary school last week and talked about their quilts and the history behind them. The Art Museum here in Atlanta is having an exhibit of the quilts. They have been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and other museums. My daughter said that before the Ladies of Gees's Bend were discovered by an Atlanta folk art enthusiast the quilts many times were given away or sold for little or nothing. That has all changed now as have the lives of these quilters. The amazing part of the story of the quilters is their patterns which have been handed down from generation to generation at times and are extremely modernistic. And most all of these ladies had never been out of Gee's Bend much less to a museum so the ideas for the patterns came from their ancestors and from their hearts.

Collective History
Gee’s Bend is a small rural community nestled into a curve in the Alabama River southwest of Selma, Alabama. Founded in antebellum times, it was the site of cotton plantations, primarily the lands of Joseph Gee and his relative Mark Pettway, who bought the Gee estate in 1850. After the Civil War, the freed slaves took the name Pettway, became tenant farmers for the Pettway family, and founded an all-black community nearly isolated from the surrounding world. During the Great Depression, the federal government stepped in to purchase land and homes for the community, bringing strange renown — as an "Alabama Africa" — to this sleepy hamlet.

The town’s women developed a distinctive, bold, and sophisticated quilting style based on traditional American (and African American) quilts, but with a geometric simplicity reminiscent of Amish quilts and modern art. The women of Gee’s Bend passed their skills and aesthetic down through at least six generations to the present. In 2002, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in partnership with the nonprofit Tinwood Alliance, of Atlanta, presented an exhibition of seventy quilt masterpieces from the Bend. The exhibition, entitled "The Quilts of Gee’s Bend," is accompanied by two companion books, The Quilts of Gee’s Bend, and the larger Gee’s Bend: The Women and Their Quilts, both published by Tinwood Media, as well as a documentary video on the Gee’s Bend quilters and a double-CD of Gee’s Bend gospel music from 1941 and 2002.

And This

Art critics worldwide have compared the quilts to the works of important artists such as Henri Matisse and Paul Klee. The New York Times called the quilts "some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced." The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is currently preparing a second major museum exhibition and tour of Gee’s Bend quilts, to premiere in 2006.

http://www.quiltsofgeesbend.com/
Click on title above and read about the "Quilters of Gee's Bend"

Also go here http://www.high.org/ to read about the quilt exhibit here in Atlanta.

Hi:

I don't understand the comment on January 31, 2006 with my name and URL for Quilt Camp in the Pines, but it's from someone in Castillon, Spain signed "M". Maybe your blog had a hiccup.

i live in the western cape province of south africa and am a quilter and we have a quilting group called "the crafting chatting chicks" and meet every thursday and have great fun and now we will have even more as i am now connected to your site and get all the new information on quilting
take care from sunny south africa

Is there any recent and reliable news on the 2nd touring exhibition of the quilts of Gee's Bend? I missed it the first time around and am hoping I can have a second chance to view these mastepieces. Anyone know anything? Or know how I can find out? Thanks.

Hi,
There is a quilting community of about 4000 in South Africa which is growing slowly but steadily.

There is a website www.quiltsa.co.za for the South AFrican Quilters Guild
and my website www.amafu.co.za