✰PREMIUM
200 quilts on display for the Brooklyn Quilters Guild

SUNSET PARK — The Brooklyn Quilters Guild hosted its biennial quilt show at BKloft26 in Sunset Park on Saturday and Sunday, April 26 and 27. Nearly 100 of the guild’s roughly 230 members contributed 200 quilts for the exhibition, which also featured a quilt show raffle, silent auction, two special quilts, a tote bag raffle, sewist workshops and vendors. 

Quilts of varying sizes created a maze of colors for visitors to walk through, and friendly guild members, eager to chat about their work, were dispersed throughout the loft. The show is a grander version of what happens at the guild’s monthly meetings, hosted both virtually and in person at the Holy Name of Jesus Church on Prospect Park West.

“People think it’s a group of little old ladies sitting around sewing,” said Martha McDonald, co-president of the guild and the quilt show chair. “It’s a huge room filled with people, and it’s kind of a business meeting — where we update everybody on what’s going on and then we do a show and tell, ’cause we like to see everybody’s quilts. It sounds like kindergarten, but it’s fun.”

But the quilt show was not only a space for Guild members to show and tell — two special quilts were also on display, including the never-before-shown “Star of Honor Memorial Quilt.” This American flag-shaped, 10-foot-by-6-foot quilt was made in 2002 to commemorate the lives of uniformed personnel who died in the line of duty on Sept. 11, 2001. The front of the quilt is covered in 424 hand-embroidered stars, each honoring a lost individual. The back is made up of 198 red, white and blue blocks signed by firefighters, police, victims’ families and others.

Donna DeFalco-Boyle designed the quilt and former guild member Angie Roth arranged and constructed the pieces. More than 120 individuals helped bring the vision to life. 

“It’s an honor to be able to showcase this quilt during this year’s quilt show as we approach the 24th anniversary of Sept. 11,” said Brooklyn Quilters Guild Community Projects lead Annette Wallace. “This quilt is the result of a passion project that aided in supporting families and individuals through their grief journeys.”

Another passion project — nonprofit Brooklyn FAM: Festival of Art’s music’s “Patchwork Quilt” — covered a floor-to-ceiling section of a BKloft26 wall. Master quilter Sylvia Hernandez pieced together 120 squares decorated by Brooklynites across eight workshops hosted by Brooklyn FAM. The pieces form the border of Brooklyn within a tree with exposed roots. In the top left and right-hand corners are a small map of the borough and “Brooklyn” in block letters.

“I thought, this thing is going to be so huge, I don’t know how I’m going to put it together,” Hernandez said, laughing. But she did — and the “Patchwork Quilt” is just one example of her quilting expertise. Her 2017 piece “Flint Water” is currently on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The Brooklyn Quilters Guild was founded in 1993 after a meeting hosted at the Sewing Circle on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope that attracted 65 people interested in quilting. Since then, the Guild has remained committed to encouraging creativity, welcoming those interested in the craft and sharing knowledge through monthly meetings and biennial quilt shows where members display their work.

In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Guild had to cancel its Industry City show. But in 2023, the Guild was back with a show at BKloft26 on 153 26th St. that attracted roughly 1,500 attendees. For its 2025 show, the guild returned to Sunset Park with a volunteer team that spent more than 12 hours on Friday, April 25, setting up racks and tables for the 200 quilts, workshops and raffles featured in the exhibition.

“Everyone in the guild steps in and volunteers,” said McDonald. 

“There’s so much to learn from and be inspired by,” said Brooklyn Quilters Guild member and soon-to-be treasurer Johanna Bjorken. 

Bjorken has quilted for a while, but joined after the 2023 Quilter’s Guild show. Now, Bjorken has her own work on display: “We Cannot Walk Alone,” a 90-inch-by-88-inch quilt made by hand and machine and covered in 1,017 socks.

“At first, the inspiration was really to just do something with reclaimed fabrics and quilting and finding beauty in giving something new life,” Bjorken said. “But as I made it, I really started to become moved by the fact that all of these socks have traveled different paths and journeys and came together.”

The socks in the piece were sourced from Guild members as well as Bjorken’s friends and family. She said she “learned so much about people in Brooklyn and their socks,” including that people tend to keep their terrycloth hospital socks and favor the brand Hanes. During her final push to finish the quilt, Bjorken drove around Brooklyn collecting socks from Guild members for two hours on Inauguration Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

“I really just felt this weight of how it is going to take all of us in community to get through this next period. That was really the beauty of all these different journeys coming together,” Bjorken said. “I love this community and just how I’ve grown as a quilter … I tell friends it’s the most functional organization I’ve ever been part of because everybody pulls their weight, and it’s this generosity that is really pretty incredible.”

Tucked into the furthest section of BKloft26, past the quilt exhibitions and the collaborative round-robin projects on display, several vendors offered a variety of fabrics, clothing items and more. 

Little House Cottons Founder Kristen Balouch, a children’s book author and illustrator of 25 years, attended as a first-time Brooklyn Quilters Guild vendor on Saturday, April 26. Balouch sold custom-designed fabrics and what she called “some whimsical projects,” such as hobby-horses. 

Kristine Gupta, founder of Indian and Japanese textile distributor business Loom and Stars was also a first-time quilt show vendor alongside former Quilter’s Guild president and current member Richie Doron, who sold fabrics sourced from different wholesalers. 

Returning vendor, Lois Kinley of Sweet Octavia, a zero-waste East New York clothing boutique that sells an assortment of female clothes, tops, coats, trousers and bags, came back after a successful first time in the 2023 show. Kinley loved the positive feel of the craft show and during her 2025 return she had many repeat customers. 

Saturday’s event was scheduled from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and the exhibition picked up the next morning, ending at 4 p.m. Guild member and vendor Doran shared his thoughts on the importance of the biennial tradition.

“I think it’s just to show that anyone can make a quilt, there are no rules to quilting, you don’t even have to use fabric to make a quilt,” said Doran. “You can make a quilt out of anything.”