amazing quilts

( The quilt at the top of the page is from Loretta Young Gee's Bend, Alabama and the quilt below is from Rosie Lee Thompkins, California.)

I love African American Improvisational style quilts. Talk about rules are made to be broken! The asymmetry found in these quilts is absolutely breathtaking. Some of the most well known quilters quilting in this style are of course the women from Gee's Bend. A truly amazing quilting community. Another highly prolific quilter,not part of the Gee's Bend community,who quilted in this style was Rosie Lee Thompkins. Her real name was Effie Mae Howard but she quilted under a pseudonym to guard her privacy. Ms. Thompkin's passed away in December 2006. Her work has been displayed in several museums in the States and currently she has a solo exhibit at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont. The exhibit is called "Something Pertaining to God",go to www.shelburnemuseum.org for more information. Another great source of information on African American quilts is a man named Eli Leon. Mr. Leon has been collecting and researching Improvisational quilts for years and is the person who discovered Ms. Thompkins. Checkout his site for more information,www.elileon.com

This is one of the quilts (called "Strips") that I've made and is available through Volksfaden. It is machine peiced but quilted by hand. I love to design and piece the quilts but I think handquilting requires much more patience and skill than I possess. A woman outside of Berlin did the quilting for me. If anyone needs a quilt quilted by hand, I do have women I can highly reccomend so contact me for information. There is a Patchworkgilde here in Germany with over twenty thousand members. So if you are in Germany and are interested in quilting , checkout the Patchworkgilde, www.patchworkgilde.de.

First Blogday

Welcome to the official Volksfaden blog ! A couple of weeks ago I opened an online fabric shop out of Berlin, Germany called www.volksfaden.de. I will be specializing in contemporary quilting fabric and thus far have fabric from Amy Butler's "Belle" and "Lotus" collection, Lecien's "My Folklore" and Moda's "Uptown". I love great prints and am very excited to be able to offer fabric I love in Volksfaden. Stop by if you get the chance.
The arts and crafts movement is growing slowly here in Germany but just the fact that someone has started DaWanda ( an Etsy like initiative) here in Berlin is a real sign in my opinion that there is a community out there just waiting for it's chance.
I will be posting about cool things in and around Berlin and what is new at Volksfaden.
I applaud and salute the creative fury of the many bloggers out there and join this community with humility.