This is a perfect opportunity during this Antique Quilt Documentation Day to have them documented and share them with others if they wish at the antique quilt exhibit during Dogwood Festival or as a potential quilt square pattern on one of the quilt barns. Anne Cornell of the Quilt Barn Trail committee hopes “to utilize some of the quilt patterns and stories to develop more of the large painted squares for Coshocton’s Quilt Barn Trail. Dadik has been a quilt maker, pattern designer, teacher, quilt restorer, researcher of quilt history and collector of quilts for more than 25 years. The Quilt Barn Trail and the Antique Quilt Documentation Day grew out of ideas generated through The Coshocton County Arts and Cultural Alliance. read more

In late April every year, the American Quilter’s Society draws 35,000 quilt makers and quilt lovers to Paducah for one of the biggest quilt shows in the country. This is the handiwork of Bill and Meredith Schroeder, who decided to turn Paducah into “Quilt City USA,” a name they trademarked after creating the American Quilter’s Society and staging the first show in 1985. Now the museum is among a select group “that not only have strong and expanding collections of quilts, but are active forces in making these collections accessible for research and educational use,” says quilt historian Marsha MacDowell, curator of the Michigan State University Museum in East Lansing, home of the Great Lakes Quilt Center. During the show, quilts decorate almost every shop window in town — for the first time this year some of the contest quilts will be for sale at the show — and an annual exhibit of antique quilts fills the Civic Center. In recent years, the AQS says that the Executive Inn, the hotel next to the convention center, had deteriorated so much that the society threatened to pack up its quilt show and leave town. read more

Beginner’s guide, introduction, to quilting, including quilt sizes, materials, stretching the quilt. My romance with quilts began when I was given a piece of an old “crazy quilt” several years ago. One excellent large paperback book, 101 Patchwork Patterns, is all you need to get you started in quilt design. You can use this comment form to enter your personal experiences or additional information and resources that you’d like to share with Mother Earth News readers. Mother Earth News offers you practical information on cutting energy costs, do-it-yourself home improvements, organic gardening, self-sufficiency, sustainable technologies and much more! read more

They hold two quilts, “Carnation” and “Hawaiian Baby Rose,” given to them by former student Tomiko Akada, now a certified instructor of quilt design in Kobe, Japan. In some ways the location of the barrel is a tribute to Caroline Correa, who passed the gift of more than 300 Hawaiian quilt patterns on to her granddaughter after her death; the patterns are enclosed in one of their original containers. The common room is also where the new generation of quilt makers keep the hand-drawn stencils designed by Serrao’s husband, John, a master quilt designer and retired member of the Honolulu Police Department. They saw selling quilt patterns as a way to earn extra money and decided to test the market, at first selling smaller versions of patterns for $5 to people interested in learning how to quilt. On Saturdays, John leads a quilt design workshop at Iolani Palace, with assistance from Poakalani, Raelene and Cissy in teaching the do’s and don’ts to a new group of participants eager to learn the tradition. read more