Quilt National rolls around every two years, bringing together a vast range of quilted textile art from around the world. This year, I was fortunate enough to attend the show twice: once for the opening weekend and again during the final week of the show.
The opening weekend was amazing, but with so much going on, I didn’t have the opportunity to take a close look at most of the quilts. While the gallery was still buzzing during the final week of the show, it was easier to focus on each of the quilts. Today, I’m sharing five quilts that stood out to me at Quilt National 2025.
How I Choose the Quilts
This show was particularly difficult to select just five quilts from. The curation encompasses a diverse range of styles and techniques, with every quilt being a truly expressive work of art. With all the quilts being so amazing, I decided to eliminate quilts that I had already shown in individual images from opening weekend.
Each of the quilts I selected for this post appealed to me from across the room and invited further visual exploration as I got closer.
Finally, I avoid selecting quilts that received awards. These quilts receive a lot of well-deserved attention, but I also like to include quilts that you may not get to see otherwise.
The Quilts
Sweet Tooth
Artist: Juli Smith
What I like about the quilt:
- The predominantly pink and purple color palette evokes the joy of childhood while elevating it to a more sophisticated level through the use of a wide range of values and a subtle shift into analogous colors.
- Colorful quilting threads build up to effectively evoke sketched lines
- Printed fabrics combine with solids to mimic the effect of paint and collage
Polyphonic 5
Artist: Margaret Black
What I like about the quilt:
- The value range and variation in color intensity add depth to the design, especially with the use of pale pastels and muted, as well as extremely dark, muted colors.
- Partial sections of vibrant colors activate the bottom edge of the quilt in sharp contrast with the dark section of the composition immediately above it.
- Tightly spaced straight line quilting creates a filtered effect over the piece without distracting from the starring pieced composition
Refuge- Uvalde May 2022
Artist: Gail Sevilla
What I like about the quilt:
- The bright colors of the palette evoke joy, a sharp juxtaposition to the reason the artist constructed the quilt.
- Light quilting keeps the quilt structure soft and cuddly
- The consistency of half-square triangles creates cohesion while variation in scale and improvisational construction add an element of chaos reflecting the world outside of the quilt.
Whitcross
Artist: Carson Converse
What I like about the quilt:
- The gentle color shifts are condensed through cutting the wholecloth piece into strips and stitching them back together.
- Exposed seam allowances develop texture and enhance the linear effect of the quilting. I particularly enjoy the way the seam allowances transform the side edges of the quilt and the shadows it casts.
- The horizontal seam and quilting lines create a strong landscape effect in a quilt with a vertical format
Swish
Artist: Diane Melms
What I like about the quilt:
- The interplay of the abstract shapes creates the feeling of a dynamic doodle
- Echoing the shapes in their color of thread adds a sense of movement and enhances the playfulness of the composition
- Effective use of scale adds to the whimsy of the piece through the use of a small printed dot, through large, bold appliqué motifs.
See More of the Quilt National Show
Did you know that Quilt National travels around the world after it runs in Ohio? You can only see the entire show at once at the Dairy Barn Arts Center in Athens, Ohio, but afterward the show is split into three sections, each with its own travel schedule.
If you would like to see the full show, check out the catalog for Quilt National 2025.
The Dairy Barn also shares videos of many quilt artists talking about their quilts exhibited at Quilt National.
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