Quilt Show Sainte-Croix-aux Mines 2017

The 23rd Annual European Crossroads Patchwork Meeting was recently held in various villages in the mountains of Alsace, France. To see my previous posts on this quilt show, please click here and here before reading on.

Sainte-Croix-aux-Mines had a few really lovely surprises in store for me. The first exhibit worth mentioning was:

Villa Burrus

At this exhibit, there was a room devoted to the Artist, Dijanne Cevaal who was born in the Netherlands but later moved to Australia, where she resides today.

Dijanne is a textile artist who dyes and prints her own fabrics to then transform them into her quilt masterpieces. She does this with a combination of hand and machine sewing techniques. She has a book and blog, where you can see some of her work, click here to go to it.

Inspired by the great explorers and their journeys Dijanne has created these nomadic plaids called “Travelers Blankets” which tell their stories through the fabric and embroidery stitches she has used.

Eglise St. Nicolas

One fantastic exhibit I found at this location, was that of Brigitte Morgenroth who is a self-taught quilter from Germany.

What particularly excited me about her work was her use of beautiful silky fabrics, not typical in quilting, combined with beautiful colors and shades, and yet using traditional quilting techniques to achieve a finished art piece which is then an overall modern design.

She took up quilting while residing in Africa, where she taught herself to quilt through photos of Amish quilts.

She uses a variety of fabrics such as dupioni silk, polyester-satin and even some printed cotton to achieve geometric designs.

Brigitte Morgenroth often uses variations of the Log Cabin technique, which have such interesting visual effects.

All of her quilts are hand quilted.

We were lucky enough to have a short chat with the Artist herself, which was very exciting for me.

Espace d’expositions

In this exhibition hall, awaited a lovely exhibit put on by the French textile manufacturer located in a nearby village in Alsace.

The exhibit, called “Two Centuries of Exceptional Achievements” showcased historical paper, cotton and silk, used in the French textile industry.

What I found particularly interesting was a video showing the manufacturing process at their factory in Ribeauvillé, where their fine household linens and tablecloths are made.

Their beautiful designs are created both by hand and machine. It’s production process detailing, screen printing, the dyes and material used and a short history of their entirely French made products, are detailed in English on their website.

At the exhibit the company also had a very popular stand, displaying a beautiful selection of their linens.

I can’t tell you how happy I was that I didn’t buy any cheap souvenirs before arriving at the show. The tea towels I did purchase, had to be the ultimate of French souvenirs. You can see my post here for photos.

In addition to the linens, they also were offering their fabrics for sale. Bags of small scraps for patchwork and quilting and large pieces which could be turned into the sewists own creations.

Further exhibits at this location were:

“Kaleidoscope Quilts” by Paula Nadelstern, USA

“Retrospective or the Journey of a Passion” by Andrée Leblanc, France

Well, that concludes my visit to Sainte-Croix-aux Mines. Stay tuned for further posts on this patchwork meeting,  as I still have plenty to share with you.

I hope you enjoyed this post. Please feel free to leave a comment or question, should you have one.

Have a great week!

Jodie