Piecing Together: A Look at Quilting’s History and Impact in Nashville

This week, quilters and sewists from around the world are packing up their pins and needles and heading to Nashville for the Modern Quilt Guild’s QuiltCon, which takes place at the Music City Center Feb. 21-24. The convention will feature everything from workshops teaching how to appliqué to lectures like “The F Word: Why Don’t Quilters Talk About Feminism?” With a one-day pass ($12), you can snake your way through more than 550 quilts from all around the world, see special exhibitions and peruse the stalls of about 100 vendors.

Modern quilting takes its cues from midcentury art, with solid colors, bold design and expansive negative space. As with most practices, you have to know the rules in order to break them, so modern quilting is inexorably tied to its traditions. While male quilters are certainly out there — we see you, quilty men! — the art form has potency as a language familiar to women. It tells our stories. It brings us together.

In this week’s issue, we’ve rounded up quilty folks from around the city who appreciate the art form — including a guild that explores “being black and beautiful in Nashville,” a noted fabric designer, a painter who is inspired by quilting, and the people behind an ongoing exhibit at the Tennessee State Museum.