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My friend Gert (who used to be on LJ back when!), who is an avid quilter, is showing some of his work at the Bartholomeus Gasthuis in Utrecht, together with Maria, his former boss from when he worked in a quilt fabric store. We went to the opening, and after cutting the ribbon, Gert showed every quilt to us and explained some things about the fabric and techniques used, but also what he wanted to express with that quilt.

“Real Men Stitch” says this one, made as a banner, so it has rounded corners at the bottom.

This is his “Japanese treasure boxes” quilt, using upcycled kimono fabric for the colourful ‘treasures’ in the boxes made with the dark fabric. Most of his work is very colourful, and you can see how his work has become more and more expressive in colour, shape and theme. Really great to see these together to see the progression.

He always works very precise (something he learned from his large-scale cross-stitching embroidery work), and this is the only ‘improvised’ quilt on display. With the technique you make ‘random’ triangles of fabric and create rectangles from them, so that it always fits together. It’s like fir trees on a mountain range.

The cool thing about this 3D effect is that with this orientations, the boxes seem to come out of the background, but if you turn it around, the boxes seem to be indents in the larger boxes!

Some of his more recent work expresses his identity as a gay man, celebrating the work of Erwin Olaf and Harvey Fierstein. The Erwin Olaf quilt includes “pockets” made of tulle fabric after every ‘F’ block where a postcard with a photo from Erwin Olaf has been inserted.

He worked very hard to finish this quilt for the exposition, titled “Adam and Steve” (iykyk). It shows the couple Adam and Steve living on their farm, surrounded by their livestock and flowers and portraits of their friends. (They must live in a warm climate, none of them wear shirts…) The background fabric is toile de jouy, which has these idyllic arcadian scenes — but always with a man and a woman. So this is a delicious subversion and commentary on heteronormativity.

There’s more, and Maria’s quilts are also varied and completely different, which makes it a must-see for the quilt-lover in your life. Admission is free and the expo is until the end of September.

If you want to see more of Gert’s work, simply search for “real men stitch” and you’ll find it!