What is Modern Quilting?

SSMQG's parent organization, the Modern Quilt Guild (MQG), is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support and encourage the growth and development of modern quilting through art, education, and community. In order to serve that mission, MQG has outlined several characteristics often seen in modern quilting. Their new definition, seen below, provides a foundation from which all chapters and members can begin to educate about modern quilting. 

At the heart of modern quilting is innovation. The emphasis is on design and originality over replication and perfection of technique. 

While the characteristics identified by MQG can be a common thread among many modern quilts, this list is not comprehensive of every attribute in modern quilting, nor is it a constraint to what can be in a modern quilt. Common characteristics are:

• Bold use of color
• High contrast and graphic areas of color
• Improvisational piecing
• Minimalism
• Maximalism
• Expansive negative space
• Alternate grid work (asymmetry, skewed perspective, differing scale)
• Modern traditionalism

In modern traditionalism, traditional patchwork quilt blocks, such as a log cabin block, and traditional styles, such as boro and kantha, are often reimagined using modern quilting elements, such as asymmetry, color, and scale.

Similarly, various themes that appeared decades and centuries ago in quilts continue to evolve in quilting today. Pictorial quilts and quilts featuring text tell the stories of what is happening or has happened within society, or one’s own life. These quilts, also referred to as social commentary quilts, are present in modern, traditional, and art quilting styles. 

In a similar way, the utilization of recycled or upcycled materials, once done out of necessity, is more recently being used for broader environmental impact. This creates an interesting bridge between generations of quilters, with many modern quilters taking the various themes, techniques, and materials of earlier generations and applying different characteristics of modern, traditional, and other styles to create their own unique quilts.

A quilt is typically recognized as multiple layers of fabric threaded together with a finished edge. MQG has often used the word “functional” when describing modern quilts. This may mean different things to different people: a modern quilt may function as a bed covering, a comfort object, or a piece for visual reflection. In all cases, the use of the quilt does not push it under or pull it out from the umbrella of being a modern quilt, as long as it is perceived by its maker to be useful.

Some quilters yearn for a finite definition of a modern quilt – and some rebel against the idea. MQG uses the above list as their definition, knowing it may be malleable. Art, craft, and quilts are subjective, and modern quilting will always continue to evolve.