Today’s Modern Quilt Guild movement quilters have strongly embraced functionality/warmth as a primary raison d’etre  for their creativity, and as Modern quilters are focused on making bed quilts of various sizes, so there are very few small quilts in Luana Rubin’s collection of images from the recently held QuiltCon in Austin – which you can see on her blog here

Exhibitors at Austin were juried from their entries, so thery were probably highly representative of some of the best being done in the Modern Quilt Guild movement as a whole, and the effect was stunning. I’d love to have been there.  The mostly clear graphic designs in their in their quilts represnt a huge style shift from the traditional patchwork and quilting patterns.

According to the Guild’s website, graphic qualities including minimalism and use of negative space are prime values.  In order to avoid violating anyone’s copyright, ;-p I modestly include a couple of my own quilts that I am sure qualify as Modern in terms of this guild:

Mirage 1, 2002.  80cm x 96cm wall quilt. 

This small wall quilt led me to make the following a few years later:

Ebb & Flow Scrap Quilt,  2008.   Approx 100cm x 145cm, single bed.

Both of these quilts extensively use offcuts from other previous quilt projects  (but noe actually recycled from previous uses)  plus some yardage from my stash – which includes quite a bit of undyed muslin aka calico in Australia, and in this way are typical of many of my ‘recent’ (post 2001) quilts, many of which are in the Ebb & Flow Gallery elsewhere on this website

Although it is hard to tell individiual cases from the QuiltCon photos, no doubt there are many modern quilters using at least some recycled fabrics, but clearly this movement as represented in Austin has given fabric manufacturers a shot in the arm.  Most of this large and growing group of quilters are working with purchased fabric collections featuring the latest textural and geometric prints against whites, gradated neutral solids and bright clear solids.   Indeed, despite design differences, many of these same fabrics appear from quilt to quilt, maker to maker, so manufacturers have latched on to favoured colour palettes, particularly the bright clear colour of the Modern Quilt Guild logo, and have produced what modern quilters want.  But I think over time quilters who worked with them this first time will gradually explore/develop individual colour signatures, and at future QuiltCon events I think there’ll be significant breaking out of the logo colour conformity, even as the ethic of this design movement is preserved, for there is no doubt these modern bold graphic designs are here to stay in mainstream quilt making.