U&U "makes my heart skip a little"

“It took me awhile to actually read the essays because I was so mesmerized by the quilts, which are all from Roderick Kiracofe’s collection. This books makes my heart skip a little every time I open it. I love quilts that are ‘off’ and all of them have this quality. There is so much inspiration in here—I can only look at a few quilts at a time. It’s a very special book.”
— Amy Karol, Angry Chicken

Thank you to Amy at Angry Chicken for her review of U&U. I loved how she connected the tactility of quilting with the experience of reading the book. She took some lovely photographs of the book, which you can see to the right.

Read her review on Angry Chicken.

U&U quilts “surprisingly improvisational, much like Jazz is to music”

Tim Latimer sat down to work on some new and improvised quilt tops. I loved seeing U&U in the middle of his quilting space, right where I want it to be. See his images below. So many vibrant colors!

“I have one of his other books ‘The American Quilt: A History of Cloth and Comfort 1750-1950’ and this book completes the story. People often view quilting as nonexistent between the late 40’s and the quilt revival of the 70’s. This book shows that this was not the case. The nearly 150 quilts in this book are surprisingly improvisational, much like Jazz is to music. The notes are the same but they are played differently. It is a beautiful book and I highly recommend it.”
— Tim Latimer

"Quilt scholars are debunking a few myths" - The New York Times

I was excited to be included in Eve Khan's article about the exciting things happening with quilts this year. Her article, "Celebrating American Quilts in Shows and Books," highlights a variety of projects that are expanding the contemporary scholarship of American quiltmaking.

“People think of quilts as nostalgia, and we have to get beyond that,” the textiles historian and dealer Laura Fisher, who runs the Fisher Heritage gallery in New York, said while leafing through a coffee table book by one of her customers, the collector Roderick Kiracofe. The book, “Unconventional & Unexpected: American Quilts Below the Radar 1950-2000” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang/Abrams), is full of bedcovers that she describes as “funky, maverick kind of quilts.”

Mr. Kiracofe has also heard his 300 pieces called “the ugly quilts,” he said in an interview. He started looking for unusual quilts in 2004, after decades of focusing on more traditional pre-1940s patchworks. Loud colors and asymmetrical stripes attract him, as do scraps of synthetic prints, perhaps recycled from 1950s upholstery and 1970s disco shirts.

Click here to read the article in the New York Times.

Quilt from Unconventional & Unexpected

Quilt from Unconventional & Unexpected

Reasons to “hug” U&U from Meg Cox

I had the pleasure of chatting with Meg Cox. She has written a beautiful review of Unconventional & Unexpected, and I love that she called me a "tastemaker."

I shared with her, "I always wanted to do a book that would continue the story of The American Quilt and show what happened after 1950." She clearly relates to the quilts I have collected and what they represent for this time period in quilt history.

Click here to read the review.