Overview

Stitching Stories: 50 Years of Canberra Quilters at Canberra Museum + Gallery celebrates the creative community that helped shape quilting in Australia.

Founded in 1976, Canberra Quilters began with a small gathering of patchwork enthusiasts meeting in a Curtin home. From those beginnings the group grew into Australia's first quilting organisation and one of the region's most active craft communities. Today it brings together hundreds of members who share skills, experiment with new techniques and sustain a strong culture of making.

Stitching Stories traces this journey through a rich selection of quilts, textiles and clothing. Visitors encounter works that mark personal milestones, explore artistic ideas and reflect everyday life in Australia. The exhibition reveals how quilting evolved from practical household craft into a vibrant form of artistic expression.

A highlight is The Quiltmaker, a monumental portrait quilt honouring Margaret Rolfe AM, founder of Canberra Quilters and a pioneering figure in Australian quilting. Rolfe helped develop distinctly Australian patchwork designs and played a key role in the national revival of quilting in the late twentieth century.

The exhibition also showcases art quilts, experimental textiles and wearable pieces that demonstrate the diversity of contemporary quilting practice.

Through colour, fabric and meticulous stitching, Stitching Stories offers visitors an insight into the friendships, skills and shared knowledge that have sustained Canberra Quilters for half a century.