More Beauty In Our World: ‘Curated Quilts’ Has Arrived

Wonderful things are happening in the quilt world.

All around us, quilters and the people who love them are creating new places for us to learn, grow, be inspired, and gain new perspective on this thing we love so much. Every once in awhile, I’ll hear a quilter grumble how “the quilt world isn’t what it used to be” and I actually agree, though as far as I’m concerned, it’s better than ever.

There’s a new publication out on stands now called Curated Quilts and you should get a copy. It’s true that not long ago, I entreated you to investigate another quarterly publication I felt worthy of your time and resources. That I’m coming to you with another suggestion is proof that what I said above is true: Good stuff is happening in print, people, and I refuse to withhold my praise!

Curated Quilts (CQ) is a 90+ page, advertisement-free publication brought to you by Christine Ricks, (graphic designer and creative director of Missouri Star Quilt Company’s publishing division), and my pal Amy Ellis, who was a terrific guest on Love of Quilting some years ago and who I tapped to write a column on domestic machine quilting for the original Quilty magazine. These girls are legit, is what I’m saying.

Christine and Amy have done something wonderful with their brand-new magazine:  They’re organizing each issue of CQ by quilt type. Issue 01 is “Linear Quilts,” for example, which means that the strippy quilt, the bar quilt, the however-you-call-it quilt with lots of vertical or horizontal lines is the focus of the issue. (Issue 02 is “Log Cabin,” so you get the idea.)

While Curated Quilts is geared primarily for the modern quilter, the fact that they hired me to write historical perspectives on each issue’s chosen quilt style shows Amy and Christine are thinking broadly and thinking big. And, as I have said before, even if you don’t make modern quilts per se, there is so much to learn from this ever-widening corner of the quilt world. The moderns are a force, and watching what they do gets more exciting every passing year. I think I’ve made exactly .5 quilts that could be considered “modern” — I put an asymmetrical back on a quilt, once! — but that has no bearing on my ability to glean much from my modern sisters and brothers. It’s surely the same with you, too, or it could be: As quilters, we’re all people who make useful covers for others out of cloth and generosity. Style is secondary.

Curated Quilts is available at the website, though I’d love it if you’d ask your local quilt shop to order it for you; we gotta support our shops.

A heads-up regarding the price, which is higher than your typical quilt magazine: Like Quiltfolk, Curated Quilts doesn’t include any advertising whatsoever — and make no mistake, advertisements are what fund magazines. Without ads, you have to structure a publication’s business plan differently, i.e., rely on a higher sticker price and hope for a healthy subscription list. What the reader gets in return for her money and her good faith is nothing short of a zen-like reading experience, a magazine that is more like a beautiful book (but cheaper!), a magazine that will look so pretty on your coffee table, your sewing table, and then on your bookshelf, lined up with all the other issues to come, that you will quickly get used to the difference.

That I get to write about quilts for these exciting, emerging, game-changing publications is a dream come true. Heck, I never even dreamed of it, exactly, but I’m so grateful. We should all be very excited when these kinds of projects are launched because it proves the health of quilting in America.

But you don’t need to pick up a copy of Curated Quilts on principle. Pick it up because gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.

Way to go, girls!