About

Welcome to the Orange County Modern Quilt Guild

Began in 2009, officially established in 2010, and led by the beautiful Yolanda Radig, the Orange County Modern Quilt Guild was originally established by a group of like-minded modern quilters to connect, share and create. The guild has quickly grown into a spirited group of quilters who embrace and celebrate the modern quilt movement. 

Officers Click on the names below to contact directly:
Janet Crothers, Co-President
Linda Shotwell, Co-President
Kathy Schwager, Treasurer
Lisa Handley, Secretary
Bunny Mauldin, Philanthropy Chair

The History of Modern Quilting

Modern quilting has existed in many forms for much of the 20th century. It wasn’t until the 2000’s that quilts with a modern aesthetic began to appear in greater numbers and quilters began to describe themselves as modern.

A defining event occurred in 1998 when Martha Stewart Living featured Denyse Schmidt, calling her quilts a “chic, modernist aesthetic.” For many quilters in the early days of the movement, this was a key inspirational moment.

The growth of the movement was facilitated by four factors: the cultural shift of quality design being recognized by the general public, affordable digital cameras, the changing fabric industry and the rise of social media.

In 2002, the Quilts of Gee’s Bend exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the publication of Yoshiko Jinzenji’s book Quilt Artistry, further provided inspiration to a small but devoted group of modernist minded quilters.

Two influential books were published in 2005, Denyse Schmidt Quilts and the Modern Quilt Workshop by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr. The first online quilt alongs were established on blogs around these two books and awareness continued to increase in the online world.

The flickr group Fresh Modern Quilts, established in 2008, provided the first online centralized social media venue for quilters in the movement. With that flickr group and many active blogs, the online world of modern quilting took off like wildfire.

Start of MQ Guild 

About the same time, Alissa Haight Carlton and Latifah Saafir founded the Modern Quilt Guild giving the online community a chance to form in person connections with other modern quilters. Through blogs and the Internet, word spread quickly of the fun they were having and soon guilds started popping up everywhere including the OCMQG.