Throughout its 42-year history, the nonprofit organization International Quilt Association has had a close and fruitful relationship with the International Quilt Festival event. In fact, many people have (and still do!) confuse the two, referring to “The IQA show” or “The Festival quilt contest.”

The biggest connection, of course, is that Festival provided the debut for IQA’s “Quilts: A World of Beauty” Judged Show, where members competed for up to $100,000 in cash, non-purchase prizes, against quilt artists from all over the world. Festival was proud to showcase the approximately 350 finalist works each year from the 650-700 submitted entries.

The show will take up that mantle and contest, and the 2021 Houston Festival will showcase the debut of the similar Quilt Festival Judged Show. All finalist quilts will continue to be on display for viewers from across the globe.

Festival also hosted IQA’s lavish Winners Circle Celebration (“The Quilting Oscars”) announcing the winners, the annual membership meeting, the Celebrity Quilt Silent Auction, and—in recent years—the fun, activity-filled Quiltapalooza fundraising event.

IQA was recently disbanded due to a number of reasons, but went out in style with a 70+ page final edition of their quarterly online Journal, featuring photos of award-winning quilts since the early 1980’s, memories from members and past presidents, a historical essay, and reflections from the co-founders and coordinator.

We felt that quilters outside of the membership ranks might also like to see this very special issue as well. And here it is!

© 2021. A publication of Quintessential Quilt Media.
No portion may be reproduced without the expressed written consent of Quilts, Inc.