Details on the quilt exhibits, walk, sale and auction are at the end of this column, but before I set you loose, I’ll teach you some useful quilt terms so you can impress quilters you may run into at these events. So, basically, today’s quilters (and we are all around you) cut perfectly good fabric into little pieces with their rotary cutters and then sew them back together with expensive machines into colorful “quilt tops. Then the layers are held together with “quilt stitches,” which can form a whole new pattern that overlays the fabric design — unless it’s “stitched in the ditch. Traditional quilters have rules that are enforced by the “quilt police,” who check for perfect points, even stitches and nicely filled bindings. They have a quilt’s basic elements — layers held together by some type of stitching — but you can have an art quilt without a shred of fabric. Art quilts can be quirky, humorous, pretty, political, abstract, experimental — just like any other art.

Tags: long arm quilting machines, fabric, quilt, art, quilting fabrics, machine quilting