The Iowa Quilt Museum WILL be open on Tuesday, July 4th, from 10:00am to 5:00 pm. Celebrate Independence Day by viewing a fabulous display of patriotic quilts proudly dedicated to the veterans who have honorably served our country.
For the past 10 weeks, the Iowa Quilt Museum has been honored to be the home of a display of twenty-seven Quilts of Valor®. At the conclusion of this exhibit on Sunday July 9th, each quilt will be awarded to a service veteran in keeping with the mission of the Quilts of Valor Foundation to cover service members and veterans touched by war with comforting and healing Quilts of Valor. The award ceremony is open to the public at no charge and refreshments will be served.
The Iowa Quilt Museum will be closed on
Monday, July 10th, for exhibit hanging.
Opening Tuesday, July 11th:
“Innovation Meets Tradition: Judy Martin Quilts”
The recent work of longtime designer and quilt-maker Judy Martin focuses on Log Cabin and Lone Star patterns, both of which are American patchwork classics.
The standard Log Cabin block is made up of rectangles called “logs,” with the block divided diagonally into light and dark halves. Asymmetry creates secondary patterns when blocks are joined. To provide a point of comparison between traditional Log Cabin quilts and her new, innovative works, included in this exhibit is a quilt from the artist’s 2007 publication, Judy Martin’s Log Cabin Quilt Book. The other Log Cabin quilts on exhibit are original designs from Judy’s book Extraordinary Log Cabin Quilts.
The traditional Lone Star quilt features a single, large star made up of eight large diamond-shaped units composed of smaller diamonds, often arranged in concentric rings of color. Smaller, satellite stars or appliqué elements may embellish the background squares and triangles, and a pieced or appliquéd border is sometime added to complete the quilt. Judy’s original Lone Star designs add new coloring ideas and multiple sizes of diamonds and parallelograms to create curved illusions and other effects that depart from the usual octagonal rings of the traditional Lone Star.
Patterns for nine of the Lone Star quilts in this exhibit will appear, along with numerous others, in Judy Martin’s forthcoming book, Singular Stars: Judy Martin’s Book of Lone Star Quilts. The other three Lone Stars in the exhibit are from her books, Scraps, Stellar Quilts, and Patchwork Among Friends.
Judy Martin has been making quilts since she was a college student in 1969. She worked for several years as a quilt magazine editor. Singular Stars is her 23rd publication. She is known nationwide and internationally for her books on scrap quilts, pieced borders, and quilt blocks. Her work has been exhibited at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky. For the past 24 years, Judy and her family have made Grinnell, Iowa, their home.
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