The Mother of Modern Quilting

Our local guild recently welcomed Denyse Schmidt for an evening lecture, and she also taught a class. I attended only the lecture. Denyse is a talented artist who was dubbed the "mother of modern quilting." When she began working with fiber art, she went through the art world rather than the quilt world. It was the world she already knew, and so her quilting journey took her on a unique route. She began by making quilts, hand quilting them, and offering them for sale through various art venues. It worked, and she developed an audience for her beautiful and "simple" quilts. There was not a term for her style of quilting, so someone in her field dubbed her work as "modern," and it stuck. She became known as the "mother" of modern quilting, a style which took off at a gallop and is now practiced widely.

I was interested in her unusual route into the quilting world. She does not make quilts to keep or give to friends. She sells most of what she makes. She had only two quilts to show us in person, but had many more in her slides.