OCTOBER INSPIRATIONS – by Barbara H.
October brings me to one of my favorite extended color palettes, Fall Harvest. There’s always a big bag of cuttings, scraps, odd pre-cuts, exchanges, orphan blocks, sewing errors and some end-of-bolt bargains in the house. Golds, russets, dark red and burgundy, deep purples and greens, leafy batiks, warm rich browns and beige tonals all kind of roll over, sift, and settle into layers like leaves accumulated in the garden. It will be fun to see what evolves when I turn it over next.
At FIT Museum: Doll Dressing offers a history of dolls and the influence of dolls on high fashion. Through January 3, 2027. https://www.fitnyc.edu/museum/exhibitions/doll-dressing/index.php and https://www.flickr.com/photos/museumatfit/albums/72177720333247514/
Enjoy the crowd-sourced digital project with this exhibit. A wide range of public events. This website is worth a long look with your favorite beverage in hand. Museum is free. (Short walk from Penn Station. Near Keaton Quilts.)
FIT lecture calendar highlights https://www.fitnyc.edu/museum/events/index.php Coming up: Farm to Fashion: Designing with Locally Sourced Materials, October 8, Future Forward: The Influence of Vintage Fashion, October 15, and Suitable: The Sartorial Revolution and the Fashioning of Modern Man November 2 and more…
Design Across Time: Exploring the Smithsonian Design Collection is a visual feast of objects not recently seen by the public. Varied eras, purposes, and materials, including textiles. At the Cooper-Hewitt through October 22. https://www.cooperhewitt.org/
Bard College Graduate Center presents Goddesses in the Machine: Fashion in American Silent Film for the fall semester. How did personal expression translate to powerful mass media storytelling? See the designers, artifacts, and the industry. The unique thematic scholarly exhibitions developed at this school museum are not to be missed. Through January 3, 2027. https://www.bgc.bard.edu/exhibitions/exhibitions/144/goddesses-in-the-machine-fashion Discount code for tickets on the website. https://www.bgc.bard.edu/events/1648/08-oct-2026-gallery-tour Gallery tours on Thursdays.
Cloth in Context: Kerri Green, Jean Howard, Chriss Johns at The Textile Art Gallery in Manhattan. All three began sewing traditional quilts. Each one moved to printed, painted, and/or hand-dyed abstract work with a personal unique theme. October 6 through 31. Artist talks day one at 1:00 PM. www.textileartnyc.com Bus, subway, or walk on the High Line south of Penn Sta. A gallery to watch!
Locating Girlhood: Place and Identity in Early American “Schoolgirl” Art will be open October 9 through February 28, 2027. It “sheds new light on (an) understudied genre”. Over 100 works gathered from more than 35 sources. It’s one of the exhibits celebrating America’s birthday at the Museum of American Folk Art. www.folkartmuseum.org
Upcoming virtual program October 2. Virtual Collection Tour: Exploration in Color: Red https://folkartmuseum.org/programs/virtual-collection-tour-explorations-in-color-red-10-2-26/?ID=36455
Northern Star Quilters’ Guild is having a Quilt Festival/Quilt Sale Friday/Saturday October 9-10. Location: Mt. Kisco, historic venue https://www.northernstarquilters.com/event/quilt-festival/
Mancuso Quilt Fest Virtual School House #15 runs October 14-17. https://www.quiltfest.com/upcoming-shows-and-events/quiltfest-virtual-schoolhouse-15/
Check https://ctpub.com for November 5 event Quilt Fusion: Where Thoughtful Design Meets Your Creative Voice. Creative Spark/C&T Publishing. Timna Tarr keynotes with nine experts.
Ticket sales are open for the International Quilt Festival Houston, November 12-15. https://www.quilts.com/quilt-festival/quilt-festival-houston/
The most recent in-house quilt show at Empire Quilters, Manhattan, is online: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JcXnFdAa0XFCgffPEOcA4H-6E3YS3WME/view
Textile Study Group of New York has a new gallery posted. Previous images may be found under the gallery bar. https://www.tsgny.org/
A fun way to make two-color blocks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtA1y9wXVmk
The Global Quilt Connection All-Star Sampler Platter is back the weekend of
October 24-25. It is a perk of your Evening Star Quilters membership. It is not to be shared with non-members. You do not have to watch it live if you are busy that weekend! You will receive full information from ESQ shortly. To get the most out of it, I read all the advance material, print-out and mark up my preferences and keep it as a resource for future projects. Enjoy!
Costume Art ongoing at the Met; Iris van Herpen ongoing at the Brooklyn Museum.
As always, check dates, days, opening hours, rules, etc. before you go. Bring your phone/camera and notebook/pen to capture new ideas. Every gallery in the region is awash in new exhibits in an astonishing variety of media. Hope you find “inspiration” that excites your head, your hands, and your heart.
Barbara
SEPTEMBER INSPIRATIONS – by Barbara H.
Let’s close out August first.
Textile Talk August 26. Loom to Laser: Evolutionary Experimentation with Leisa Rich
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gwMmlMVlTp2IXsHJTLBhSg#/registration sponsored by SAQA, 2:00 PM Eastern. Previous talks, whether sponsored by SAQA, Quilt
Alliance, International Quilt Museum, or Surface Design Association, usually post on YouTube.
Queensborough Community College is offering a hand sewing class as part of its Continuing Education/Workforce Development Program. August 27 through October 1. Details at
https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/ce/courses/basic-hand-sewing.html
New York Textile Month XI returns in September. Founder Li Edelkoort outlines the importance of textiles https://www.textilemonth.nyc/manifesto The array of events on the calendar is amazing. https://www.textilemonth.nyc/ Here’s a few highlights, including some of my
favorites: Scandinavia House (The Cold Stitch) Sept. 4-16; The Textile Arts Center Brooklyn; a Batik Workshop; a Tour of FIT’s Natural Rooftop Dye Garden. Overlaps with NY Fashion Week.
September is London Textile Month 2026 sponsored by Selvedge Magazine. Monthly newsletter and/or magazine are filled with creative images for “tactiles” of the world. https://www.selvedge.org/
Free virtual lecture from Peters Valley: Posters for the People: Art of the WPA September 8 https://petersvalley.org/workshops/posters-for-the-people-art-of-the-wpa/
Open Sew at the Castle, Bayside Historical Society (Ft. Totten) September 13 (You may drive in with your machine.) https://www.baysidehistorical.org/events-1/open-sew-at-the-castle-66
For history lovers, BHS is adding a history/biography book club, first meeting September 24 https://www.baysidehistorical.org/events-1/bhs-book-club-the-personal-librarian
The Eastern Long Island Quilt Guild Exhibit will be at Hallockville Farm September 19-20. Quilts, vendors, rafles, yard sale, directions are here: https://eliqg.com/2026-quilt-show
Dates and details for Pennsylvania National, LI Fair at Bethpage, and Queens County
Agricultural Shows (Sept-Oct) were in the August Inspiration. The SAQA exhibit Minimalism has been added to the PA show.
A little local history and a lot of inspiration…Do you recognize the name Clara Driscoll? “Dear Clara, by Jason Yenter of In The Beginning Fabrics, is an ode to Clara Driscoll who was head of the Tiffany Studios Women’s Glass Cutting Department (the “Tiffany Girls”), in New York City.
Clara designed more than 30 Tiffany lamps and was one of the highest paid women of her time earning $10,000 a year in the early 1900s.” It’s only fairly recently that Tiffany owned up as to the actual artists, designers, and workers who made these exquisite objects right here in NY (Corona, Queens, studio closed in the 1930s.) Local Tiffany collections: The NY Historical
Society, Queens Museum (Flushing Meadow), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Nassau County Museum of Art (through November 8) for starters. Try some eagle-eyed walking around older communities. There are many buildings with Tiffany glass, and my best find was a church just blocks from home, on a walk with a civic group. Inspirational
fabric has landed in the major quilting stores. Thank you, Jason Yenter! Have you been to the Brooklyn Museum to see Iris van Herpen yet?
Looking forward to fall: A witches hat from Michael’s https://www.michaels.com/class/sew-a-reversible-witch-hat-a-bewitching-project-1152977989798966664-399186177537416 and a gift bag pattern from the same https://www.michaels.com/class/vod/recorded-live-sewing-
reusable-gift-bags-1069768694 and catch the Christmas in July 2026 Benartex show here https://multisite.benartex.com/virtualfabricshow/watch-sessions/
Country Farmhouse Quilting dropped this in my YouTube feed. Hope you enjoy it, too. https://youtu.be/BqSsErvQihA?is=9sHHthNhqMBaLu98
Happy Labor Day to all – with as little labor as possible…unless it’s quilting… Barbara