With more than 27 million Americans involved in quilt making -- quilts matter! In 1993, four women saw the need to centralize information about quilts and quiltmakers. Shelly Zegart and Eunice Ray of The Kentucky Quilt Project, and Karey Bresenhan and Nancy O'Bryant, corporate officers of Quilts, Inc. and founders of the non-profit Texas Quilt Search founded the Alliance for American Quilts (AAQ),
AAQ brings together industry experts, quilt scholars and teachers, quiltmakers and designers, as well as collectors to “document, preserve, and share our American quilt heritage.” The members collects the stories about historic and contemporary quilts and their makers. From this information they glean the pattern and design of our nation’s diverse citizens and communities and make it available to anyone interested without charge.
Amy E. Milne, Executive Director said, "I can say of our current trajectory that I am very fortunate to work with an incredibly dynamic and hardworking board. Twenty-five board members from all over the U.S. contribute skills and experience from the fields of quilt history, quiltmaking, museum studies and management, education, digital humanities, quilt industry, journalism, sociology and commercial media."
She added, when asked about the future. "Next on the horizon for the AAQ is to broaden our audience. We have developed 16 years worth of incredible project content thanks to our founders, our project partners, volunteers and members. Now it's time to focus on new ways to share our projects, new forums to share them in and new individuals and groups we can partner with to grow our projects and our audience."
With the continued growth of the interest in quilting and fabric art, Milne noted that, "Our mission never expires; there will always be quilts and quiltmakers to document and history to preserve and share."
AAQ maintains an easy to access online presence and several continuing projects. Three successful projects are well known to the quilting community and offer insight into the people who have devoted their lives to this form of fabric art.
Quilters’ S.O.S. – Save Our Stories
AAQ members and volunteers interview and photograph today’s quilt makers to add to a collection of oral histories that are transcribed and downloaded to an easy-to-use manual. Hundreds of these interviews are archived at the Library of Congress American Folklife Center. The information is available for research. Other projects include:
Quilt Treasures
The treasures refer to leaders of the American quilt revival of the 1960s and 70s such as Bonnie Leman, the mother of the modern quilting renaissance and founder of Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine. These oral histories document their lives, work and leadership. The AAQ project is supported by a partnership with the Great Lakes Quilt Center at the Michigan State University Museum, MATRIX: Center for Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences Online at Michigan State University, and the Library of Congress American Folklife Center.
The Quilt Index
The quilt index is a useful resource with more than 50,000 quilts held privately by individuals and institutions documented, including digital images. Access to this information is available online. Funding for the index comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Museum and Library Services, this is a joint venture between AAQ and Micigan State Universith through MATRIX and MSU Museum. Contributions come in from across the country.
Quilters Contributions
Quilters have dedicated their time and efforts. Meg Cox, a quilter for 20 years, has served on the AAQ board since 2006 and now serves as president. "I've watched this organization become stronger and more vital year by year," Meg said. "Our founders did an amazing thing, deciding that rather than create a brick-and-mortar quilt museum, they would use the emerging high-tech tools to create a virtual quilt archive accessible to anybody, anywhere in the world, at any time. They also laid the groundwork for building the resources that people would want to dig into, and we aren't slowing down on that front."
Another Project
Boxes Under the Bed is currently being developed to educate the public about identifying, preserving and making archives and ephemera accessible. The emphasis is on education and demonstrating the importance of these bits and bobbles tucked away in attics and basements. These are actually the basis for actual documentation of quilt history.
Research Focused Forum
H-Quilts is another project, this one directed toward quilt historians and researchers. It is a moderated forum where they can share and engage in quilting research and documentation. On this forum members can raise issue, report findings and share information about exhibits, collections, publications, projects, etc. worldwide. This network was developed by AAQ with American Quilt Study Group and Michigan State University.
The AAQ website freely shares information with quilters and interested visitors.
For more information about documenting quilts, see Document Your Quilts
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