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  • Floral States of Women in America (2026)

    I love sets of things. It’s probably related to my love of classification, which after all is essentially determining what belongs in a given set (and what doesn’t belong) and why. So when I learned about the Floral States of America block of the month (BOM) project from Cotton Cuts, I was immediately interested. Every month for 10 months I received pieces for 5 precut blocks. Each block included a unique fabric print based on a US state flower from Andover’s Floral States collection. There were some hiccups and delays in completing the blocks (some from Cotton Cuts and some on my end) but I finished the blocks sometime last year but promptly put them aside because I wasn’t yet sure in what order I wanted to arrange them. Alphabetically seemed boring. The blocks were sent to us chronologically in the order they joined the union, so that made sense but just wasn’t exciting me.

    And then I was invited to share some quilts at the Matilda Joslyn Gage Center on the theme of women and women’s work, and it struck me that I could do something with that and these blocks. I found the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security’s report on The Best and Worst States to be a Woman and I was off and running! I used the on-point setting for the blocks and arranged them in order top to bottom, left to right, from best to worst.

    But if you don’t happen to have all the state flowers memorized, how would you know just by looking? So I digitized the outline of each state and quilted it in each corresponding block.

    I stitched in the ditch for the sashing and used some ghost shapes to define the cornerstones. Added rays in the setting triangles and corners, et voila! A lovely 60″ x 72″ unique data-driven quilt that captures the state of women in the US.

    The problem? The Matilda Effect gallery at the Gage Center is in the original section of the historic house…and the ceilings are only 80″ tall. Unfortunately, this quilt was too large and would not work as part of the exhibit. But after talking with the director, we decided to move in a different direction. I have donated this piece to the Matilda Joslyn Gage Center to be raffled off as a fundraiser. That’s right–this bespoke quilt can be yours!

    “Floral States Of Women In America”

    2026

    60″ x 72″

    Retail price of $1850.00
    Tickets are $1/each, $10 for 12, and $20 for 25.
    Drawing will take place at the Gage Foundation Awards Dinner on October 3, 2026.
    Winner need not be present to win.

    Buy your raffle tickets here!

  • Happy Spring 2026!

    It’s been a while and life has been a whirlwind, but I have some new and exciting things to share about Little Free Fibrary and other exciting news!

    Maker Faire 2026

    The 5th annual Syracuse Maker Faire is coming up next Saturday, May 2! Little Free Fibrary will once again represent and we hope that you will join us. Stop by our booth (it’s registered under my name, Rachel Ivy Clarke) to see collaborative quilts from previous years and help create the 2026 quilt.

    Syracuse Maker Faire

    Saturday, May 2, 2026

    10am – 5pm

    New York State Fairgrounds

    This year’s theme is hexagons, and we’ll be demonstrating a clever way to fold and stitch the shape. Not only can you add your hexagon to our Maker Faire quilt, you’ll get the first access to this year’s Little Free Fibrary project. Instead of making and mailing in individual quilt blocks, this year we will do a scavenger hunt-style activity. Participants will travel across Onondaga County and collect a unique fabric at each participating Little Free Library to use to make a hexagon. As you collect and make your hexagons, you will stitch them together to make your own individual textile art piece. We are finalizing the list of participating Little Free Libraries and the info will be posted on the website as soon as it’s finished. We’ll also announce it on Instagram, so make sure to follow @littlefreefibrary for news!

    First Place Award – Fantastic Fibers 2026

    Fantastic Fibers is an annual textile art exhibit at Yeiser Art Center in Paducah, Kentucky. It takes place concurrently with AQS QuiltWeek, one of the largest quilt shows in the U.S. This year, one of my quilts won 1st Place!

    When There Are 100 is a patchwork quilt visualizing every person who served in the US Senate since it first convened in 1789. Each person is represented by a 1” wide strip, cut to the length of their service at the scale of 1 inch = 1 year (of 234 years total): blue strips for men and red for women, then quilted with lines at 1” intervals. As of October 2024, a total of 2,003 persons have served in the senate; only 60 of them (yes, you read that right) have been women. This quilt would not have been possible without community members like you who contributed to the 1,940+ blue fabrics needed to make this vision a reality. Thank you!

    Mark your calendars!

    In addition to the events above, you can see the products of these and other projects at the following current and upcoming events:

    As always, thank you for your interest and participation! Have a great spring and happy quilting!

  • Hand Made

    Surprised to find this hand-pieced teal patchwork top at a reuse store, I tried hand quilting it but quickly discovered that was not my forte. Instead I played to my strengths by layering it beneath black fabric and using custom digital quilting of my own handwriting and cut away text to encourage reflection on what kinds of hand work is valued in the quilt community and beyond.

    30 x 36″

    Found cotton hand-pieced patchwork quilt top, commercial cotton fabric, wool batting, cotton thread, custom digital wholecloth longarm quilting, cut-away reverse applique

    This quilt appeared in the following exhibitions:

    • Make Your Mark, Floyd Center for the Arts 2025
    • Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza 2025
    • New York State Fair 2025

  • Art Is(?) For Everyone

    Made in response to a call for art about Syracuse, this piece uses data from the city’s Open Data Portal to visualize the amount of public art in each designated neighborhood–the darker the shade of orange, the more public art in that area. Art is for everyone, indeed.

    16″ diameter

    Commercial and hand-dyed cotton fabrics, cotton batting, polyester thread, pressed wood frame, raw edge applique, custom digital longarm quilting

    This piece appeared in the following shows:

  • Anonymous Was A Woman

    I bought this pink patchwork top at a reuse store with the intention of making it into a coat. But when I got it home, I couldn’t bear to cut it up. Instead I layered it beneath a length of gray wholecloth wideback fabric and used digital longarm quilting motifs from Karlee Porter and cut away reverse applique text to encourage us all to reflect on who gets credit for creating art in the quilt community and beyond.

    76″ x 90″

    Found vintage patchwork quilt top, commercial cotton fabrics, cotton batting, polyester thread, wholecloth custom digital quilting, reverse applique

    This quilt appeared in the following exhibitions:

    • QuiltFest Greenville 2024
    • Genesee Valley Quilt Fest 2024
    • Smoky Mountain Quilt Show 2024
      • 2nd Place, Large Appliquéd and/or Mixed Techniques – Team
    • Text on Textiles exhibit, International Quilt Festival (Houston) 2024
    • New York State Fair 2025
      • 4th Place, Mixed Techniques

  • (Are You?) Proud To Be An American

    This quilt continues a series exploring the use of bargello to communicate changing data over time–in this case, statistics from the FBI documenting hate crimes against LGBTQ+ individuals between 1991-2022. Each vertical strip represents one year with the width calculated based on the number of hate crimes committed. The bargello strips move up or down based on whether there were more or fewer crimes than the previous year.

    Materials: commercial cotton fabric; machine pieced patchwork; custom computerized longarm quilting

    71″ x 74″

    This quilt appeared in the following exhibitions:

    • Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival 2024
    • CitraCuse at the Gear Factory 2024
    • Great Wisconsin Quilt Show 2024
    • Pride Annual Juried Exhibit at the Arlington (TX) Museum of Art 2025
    • New York State Fair 2025
    • 39th annual International Materials: Hard + Soft Contemporary Craft & Digital Art Competition and Exhibition 2026

  • Tenure Race

    In my second year as an assistant professor on the tenure track, I began logging how I spent my time to ensure it aligned with my contractual expectations of 40% research, 40% teaching, and 20% service. This quilt visualizes these categories and their subcategories, as well as my articulation work–the often undocumented and invisible work that needs to happen to enable the main work to occur (Suchman 1996). The patchwork is inspired by the well-known “jelly roll race” pattern and is quilted with lines at a 17-degree angle to represent the salary difference between me and my male colleagues.

    Materials: commercial cotton fabric; machine pieced patchwork; custom hand-guided longarm quilting

    48″ x 60″

    This quilt appeared in the following exhibitions:

    • The American Woman: Feminist Futures 2024
    • Creative Resistance: The Art of Protest, First Presbyterian Gallery, Fort Wayne, Indiana 2026

  • Acceptances x Rejections 2023

    16″ diameter

    Commercial cotton fabric, cotton batting, thrifted bedsheet, metallic thread, wooden frame, personal data, machine pieced into patchwork, digital longarm quilted and stretched over frame

    Y’all know I love data, but I’m not much for Top Nine. Instead, this one goes out to the people who have told me that sharing about rejections helps.

    Here, in quilt form, is my acceptance and rejection data from 2023. Green represents acceptances, but notice there are two shades of green: lighter for juried and darker for non-juried. Pink is rejections, and purple are things still undetermined (cough*Paducah*cough).

    Excluding the non-juried shows, which accept all works until a given deadline or a space cap, I had about a 50% success rate this year.

    I knew I wanted to stretch this on a frame (with my new electric stapler recommended by @kellyspell ) and I was just going to quilt it with a pretty circular block pattern, but as I was browsing designs I came across this one from @karleeporterdesign and knew it was the right fit.

    You are enough. Put your stuff out there. 50% > 0%. As my dad used to say, we have a 0% success rate for 100% of the things we don’t apply for. And I want to see what you make in 2024.

  • Finding Joy

    20″ x 20″

    Commercial cotton fabric, polyester batting, polyester thread, machine-pieced patchwork, domestic machine quilting, digital longarm quilting, stretched over wood frame

    Made for the 2023 QCNYS Challenge

  • Pyrex Eyes

    Originally made for the 2024 QuiltCon fabric challenge, the specified color palette reminded me of the vintage cornflower blue Corningware we had in our kitchen when I was a child. Perusing the Pyrex Pattern Library online database from the Corning Museum of Glass, the 1950 Pyrex pattern “Eyes” specifically caught my attention because of the color synchronicity. Using the database images as inspiration, I digitized a quilting pattern and used raw edge reverse applique to create pops of color and contrast rough and smooth in this double-sided, reversible quilt.

    71″ x 82″

    Windham Artisan doubleshot cotton; cotton batting, Aurifil cotton thread, wholecloth custom digital longarm quilting, reverse raw edge applique

    This quilt is available for purchase

    This quilt appeared in the following exhibitions: