The Quilters’ Guild of the British Isles, based at the Quilt Museum and Gallery in York, is planning an exciting city-wide exhibition of quilts in public spaces around the city – ‘Quilt City’ – as part of the York 800 celebrations.

The exhibition will be supported by The National Lottery through Arts Council England and City of York Council. It will run from 14 September until 16 November 2012. ‘Quilt City’ will show a wide range of original and contemporary York-themed quilts, which are unique works of textile art, in locations around the city centre.

As part of this innovative project, two contemporary quilt makers have been commissioned to make new work for the exhibition. Linda Barlow and Alicia Merrett will both produce quilts exploring contemporary and historical York.

Alicia Merrett is based in Somerset and has won the Quilters’ Guild Trophy for best use of colour in show twice. For this commission Alicia will produce a colourful quilt map influenced by John Speed’s 17th Century map of York. Alicia has said that her quilted map will “describe the main features of the city that survive today, and show the beginnings of what is now a great and flourishing city. It will celebrate the permanence of the main features of York”.

Linda Barlow, based in Shropshire, makes pictorial quilts creating images and scenes based upon substantial research. Linda has been commissioned to make quilt work in the UK and the USA winning many awards. For ‘Quilt City’, Linda will work with images and ideas based on her experiences of visiting the city.

Guild President, Tina McEwen said “The Guild is excited about commissioning two leading quilters to make work especially for the Quilt City exhibition.

The exhibition take the best of contemporary quilting to a wide audience in all sorts of locations across the city and introduce the art of quilting to people who people who have never seen contemporary textile art. We hope that many people will also visit our Museum at Peasholme Green as a result.”

For more information about the exhibition visit The Quilters’ Guild website: www.quiltersguild.org.uk