Featured Artist: Aafke Steenhuis

Aafka creates…….. 

It has been said that the Tompkins County quilters guild is “not your grandmother’s quilt guild”. About Aafke, our featured artist, it could be said she is not your grandmother’s quilter. Aafke rarely follows a pattern. Her quilts are an expression of who she is; her life’s experiences, her challenges, her joys and her unique talents. As a young adult, Aafke traveled to the United States from The Netherlands. One day she saw a picture of a pattern of a quilt in an American magazine, and said to herself, “That’s beautiful; maybe I could make a quilt myself”. With a pattern and a set of directions in English, that she could not understand at the time, she said, “I just did it.”

She has made several quilts based on her experiences, many of which have been published in journals and books such as the Studio Art Quilt Association; Sense and Scale, Quilts and Health, “A Personal Landscape”; Finger Lakes Magazine, and books by the American Academy of Orthopaedics.

Here are a few of her many, many quilts. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do!