Tarot Quilts

[Eeluna]

If any of you love quilts and tarot, you should check out an article in the April 2003 issue of *Quilter's Newsletter Magazine*. They have some wonderful photographs of quilts depicting various tarot cards.

The Tarot Art Quilt Project will be on display at The Internationl Quilt Festival in Rosemont, Illinois, on April 11-13. I'd love to go and see them all in person, but I probably won't be able to. Maybe some of you that live near there can visit the show.

[AstraSkye]

Is there any website on this, or any pictures of it (I can't get the magazine since I'm not in the States, and I doubt Press Stop has it - they are so mainstream. ;))? It sounds VERY interesting to me!!

[Azure]

I haven't seen it, but that certainly gives me ideas!

It would be really cool to do a quilt with little blocks that have various tarot symbols and card images on them. . . hmmmm.

What about you, oh fellow seamstress Mithrea? Intrigued?

[Mithrea]

Of course! Unfortunately, my sprained wrist and broken bobbin have put me out of commission for a bit. There was an old thread about tarot ideas and sewing but I can't remember the specifics. I couldn't find a website for that magazine thought :(

[tarotbear]

WOW! "Quilter's Newsletter Nagazine" is still around? I used to write freelance stuff for quilt mags and had a long subscription to them back in the 1980s. They were always very conservative; kind of surprised they would do such a "radical" article.

I did a search for 'Tarot Art Quilt Project' and came up with this:

www.oldewolf.com/custom.html

[AstraSkye]

Originally posted by tarotbear

I did a search for 'Tarot Art Quilt Project' and came up with this:

www.oldewolf.com/custom.html

For lack of better expressions: That was soooo pretty. :D

[Mithrea]

Thanks tarotbear!

[Eeluna]

Thanks for the website, Tarotbear. It's nice to see some cards that weren't in the magazine. I wish they'd put the whole set online. I'd love to see them all.

Here's the address for the magazine:

http://www.quiltersnewsletter.com/qnm/index.htm

I couldn't find anything about the tarot quilts, but they still have the March issue up as the current one. Maybe when they put April up they'll include something about them.

There's twelve pictures in the magazine, including: The Empress, The World, The Sun, Queen of Swords, Four of Wands, Seven of Pentacles, Nine of Pentacles, Five of Cups, The Heirophant, Two of Wands, Knight of Wands--some of them are utterly gorgeous!

Here's a quote from the short article:

"The tarot is an ancient system of symbols that are the ancestors of playing cards. They continue to inspire meditation and art."

[Lavender]

I can see how tarot can be such a big inspiration to people. I've seen beaded works in tarot and needle point tarot cushions too. That would be a neat idea to do a whole quilt on the cards. One panel per card and have the whole deck done.

[tarotbear]

Originally posted by Wildchild One panel per card and have the whole deck done.

That would be a damn big quilt!

Having made quilts (I have one in the permanent collection at the University of Nebraska - bragbragbrag) I did some calculations -- if you made the squares only 6 inches by 9 inches and did the designs in something like cross stitch without any borders around them to 'space' them, the quilt would be 9 blocks by 9 blocks ( 81, I know- use them to sign the top or label it) and would be ample to cover a queen sized bed. ( 54 by 81 inches )If you made the blocks any larger or added borders they would be too big and you'd have to do one quilt for the Majors and one for the Minors!

PS - I tried attaching a pic of the quilt, but I guess it is too large.

[Lavender]

True...any smaller and it would be hard to see the pictures. Or, you could paint the cards on smaller panels and then sew them into a quilt. :)