Blogs

the CQA collection: fantastic fabrics

March 9th, 2014

By Patricia Belyea

SEATTLE WA The January meeting of Contemporary QuiltArt Association convened in one of the classrooms at Bellevue Art Museum. A bevy of grown women played around with colors and fabrics—silk screening, shibori dyeing, drawing with colored pencils, designing with stencils and paints sticks, and die cutting. In one day CQA members, leading contemporary quilt artists in Washington state, created yards and yards of surface-designed cotton ready to inspire StashFesters. Members also donated fabrics from their own stashes—eclectic, global, hand-dyed and more. Attached labels show the donors and provenances of the pieces—adding intrigue to the fabrics. This week I visited the home of Patti Bleifuss where a work party was ironing, packaging and pricing hundreds of goodies for StashFest. The event, at the end of the month, supports La Conner Quilt & Textile Museum. Last year, StashFesters were thrilled by CQA’s one-of-a-kind fabrics. Within two hours, on the first morning of StashFest 2013, 80% of CQA’s wares sold out!