In late February, I attended QuiltCon in Raleigh. Afterward, I posted a series of pictures to Instagram of quilts, taken across the four-day event, that highlighted messages of social activism and cultural awareness that resonated deeply with me. Within a few short hours, the post went viral.
The carousel of photos opened with a quilt by Carey Petersen that demonstrates the dichotomy of seeing an item associated with comfort disrupted by a disheartening reality: In bold black block letters, Petersen’s quilt reads, “OUR GOVERNMENT ABDUCTED HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE BASED ON RACE WHILE I MADE THIS.” From there, the other quilts I posted expressed fear and rage, while also offering messages of hope and sharp calls to action. These weren’t comfy coverlets—they were a window into a collective consciousness.
And gauging by the reaction to these works, both in person and online, they seemed to strike a very specific chord, tapping into a shared sense of anger and discontent. As one commenter noted on my post, “Resistance is strong in the quilt world.” Quilting, and the many forms of expression it inspires, draws on deep material and historical textile traditions in North Carolina. These contemporary interpretations of the craft are exposing new audiences to the possibilities of quilting as a medium for expression.
Raleigh is an ideal location for QuiltCon, which broke attendance records this year, welcoming over 29,000 visitors to see the 600 selected quilts and two specially curated exhibits, including one that featured quilts from the Gee’s Bend Freedom Quilting Bee Legacy. While preparing for my Sunday visit to QuiltCon, I recalled someone online who said quilt conventions are “the best environment to restore your faith in humanity.”
The enthusiasm and camaraderie I found in the exhibition hall was contagious—many of the selected quilters were on hand to talk about their quilts as they handed out stickers and shared specific elements of their work. I quickly learned there is no such thing as a stranger at QuiltCon. As I continued to walk through the maze of quilts, I began to notice the political statements increase in both number and moral imperative.
In one piece by Florida quilter Bridget Pasternak titled “He’s Eating the Dogs, He’s Eating the Cats,” the 1980s video game Pac-Man gets a rebrand, with the board maze replaced by a large American flag, replete with thin blue lines. Pac-Man has become a carnivorous, power-hungry despot wearing a distinctly familiar toupee and an unusually long red tie. As his victims line up to feed his ravenous ego, a sole dissenter refuses to go with the flow, simply saying: “No!”
This sentiment was echoed nearby in a quilt by Raleigh-based quilter Ann Whitehurst, which featured 24 quilted gold crowns, lined in gold-threaded chain stitches and bejeweled with blue, pink, and green fabric. Its quilt surface includes a reverse raw edge appliquéd “NO” emblazoned across the piece, appearing as if tagged in graffiti.
I saw messages on quilts that contained quotes from James Baldwin and Fannie Lou Hamer about liberation and justice; others called for the protection and preservation of transgender rights; many questioned the censorship and erasure of culture, inclusive language, and equity; while a few quilts delved into vulnerable terrain with raw explorations of mental health and body image.
This was not your average quilt show. QuiltCon is presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, an organization founded in 2009 and comprising artists and makers who push the boundaries of traditional quilt making by combining time-honored technical craft traditions with contemporary interpretations of design and approach. The juried exhibition presents several categories of quilts representing an array of sizes, styles, and techniques, from small quilts to large quilting bee quilts, minimalist styles, modern traditional forms, improvisational designs, and piecing and appliqué methods.
Within each of these categories, many of the works spoke truth to power by confronting uncomfortable topics. One quilt in the Modern Traditionalism category, titled “Gerrymander” by Apex-based quilter Karen Kepley, featured a classic quilt block pattern called Courthouse Steps. She turned the series of squares into a pixelated, gerrymandered map of voting districts. The piece is a sharp rebuke of ongoing partisan policies used by North Carolina’s Republican-led General Assembly to redraw district maps.
Of course, the political nature of these quilts is not without precedent. American quilting traditions have historical ties to subversion and resilience. Quilts are believed to have been used to help the enslaved escape slavery via the Underground Railroad, using hidden messages that provided the enslaved with important information to help them escape north to freedom.
The AIDS Memorial Quilt is considered to be the world’s largest community art project, which brought increased awareness to scores of lives lost to HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s. According to the National AIDS Memorial, the quilt now contains over 50,000 panels that honor 110,000 individuals.
It’s not surprising that you would get some people that come into a quilt show expecting just pretty quilts—for me, the protest quilts represent support, humanity, fairness, and human rights.”
ann whitehurst, quilter
Past iterations of QuiltCon have featured equally galvanizing material: During the 2024 event, a sobering piece by Ginny Robinson, “What We Will Use as Weapons: A List of School Supplies,” stood out in particular. Robinson, a Triangle-based schoolteacher, asked colleagues across the country what objects they would use to fend off a school shooter and then rendered their answers in a series of black, appliquéd images placed against a yellow background.
On the reverse side of the quilt, a large, red semiautomatic rifle lies at the center of a white background, which includes the faint silhouette of a man as a shooting target. The work was a Best in Show quilt, chosen among the winners of each of the juried categories.
At the time, the piece received praise for its raw, unabashed candor, while also drawing ire from critics who bristled at its shocking motifs. But perhaps the work’s biggest impact was to serve as inspiration for quilters like Whitehurst, who began creating and submitting their own protest quilts.
“I love how quilting is used to express ideas that are controversial, painful, or relatable,” said Whitehurst. After her “No Kings” quilt was selected for QuiltCon 2026, the modern quilter attended the convention as a white-glove volunteer, discussing the selected quilts with visitors while revealing details on their workmanship.
“I only felt positivity when I was there,” Whitehurst said. “But it’s not surprising that you would get some people that come into a quilt show expecting just pretty quilts—for me, the protest quilts represent support, humanity, fairness, and human rights.”
The quilters’ written statements presented alongside their work were as powerful as the quilts themselves.
Many offered words of encouragement alongside their empowering quilts: Nyota, a character created and quilted by Brooke Veale, is a Black woman dressed as a superhero, in a cape with a star on her chest.
In her artist statement, Veale noted that her subject is meant “to inspire strength and unwavering grace.”
Next to “Nyota,” quilter Ethylene Ziegler’s piece titled “Resistance” featured a small hidden note of encouragement in the corner of the quilt, using a quote from actor and trans ally Pedro Pascal that says, “Keep Fighting to Be Who You Are.” In bold black block letters, Ziegler quoted a transgender UCLA student who proclaimed, “Just Living is an Act of Resistance.”
The text in Cindy Sherman’s “Words Matter” quilt reminded viewers, “You are enough.” Sherman’s statement for the quilt was equally affirming: “We live in a time when divisive words and narrowcast content combine to polarize our experiences from those of others. Words can be weapons, or they can unify and heal. We must remember that the louder the world around us becomes, the more what we say matters.”
From Gee’s Bend to an embodied Black superhero, I felt seen as I stood among these quilts—and as I read the messages stitched in the quilts, I felt heard. QuiltCon reminded me of art’s ability to seize a moment of collective outrage and turn that angst into resonating, urgent work.
These quilts dare us to open our eyes. And while they left me energized and hopeful, they also made many QuiltCon visitors uncomfortable—that was the point. These brave quilters took familiar items of comfort and protection and forced us to see them through a different lens, disrupting that which we hold dear, with the hope that their message will inspire us to use our own voices to speak up and take action.
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