About EQA

The European Quilt Association (EQA) was founded in 1989, and since then, its member countries have worked together closely to promote patchwork and quilting in Europe and to encourage the sharing of knowledge and information between member guilds. At present the EQA has about 62,000 members – the sum of the members of all 17 national guilds.

In 2009 the EQA celebrated its 20th anniversary and for this reason, there was a dedicated gallery at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham where a “special birthday card” was sent from each country. Under the theme of “Celebrations” every country sent a composition of 10 banners (15 cm wide x 150 cm long), together creating a greetings card of 150 x 150 cm.

Each country interpreted the theme in a different way, which meant that each composition was unique. In Norway, for example, it is very typical to celebrate all events with flowers so they chose title “The Valley of flowers” and all of their banners had flowers on them. Finland decided that they would have 10 cm white at the top and 20 cm navy at the bottom of their banner quilts. Switzerland, remaining true to the colour which stands for their country, included at least 75% red while Belgium specified that a splash of red (5%) was right for them. The Hungarian Guild, which was also celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2009, went for a group design. The silhouette of the country is emphasized in the composition and it showcases different techniques that have influenced Hungarian quilters: crazy, sashiko, trapunto, boutis, korak, paper piecing...... Luxemburg also decided to make a group quilt. Its composition is a vision of their National Holiday which is celebrated in June with fireworks, music and all kind of festive activities. Finally Italy decided to “play with” the colours of the EQA, black and white, and add a “touch” of red, which is an important part of every celebration. The remaining countries left up design questions to individual contributors but their greetings cards are just as exciting to look at.
 

December 2009