Heidi Parkes

Muslin dyed with onion skins, a vintage Romanex cotton ‘Barbara’ floral print from Garanti Boussac, beads from the Paris flea market, a handkerchief, Au Ver à Soie silk ribbon, vintage toile fabric, velvet naturally dyed by Edie Ure, cotton thread, silk, and a spell for intuition

Hand beaded, hand embroidered, hand appliquéd, and hand quilted

2024

58 x 53”

$8,000

This began as a Travel Diary Quilt dyed with onion skins in honor of French onion soup, but while sewing it over sixteen-months, it instead became a quilt about intuition. In my work I collaborate a lot and some of those collaborations are a dream, and others are a struggle. Often, I’ll look back and think, “Could I have seen that coming?” Sometimes I could, but it was brushed aside as being overly suspicious. This quilt says no more. It invites me to tune into that small and sometimes inconvenient voice.

In the top right corner, my brother’s ten-year-old pug Penelope watches over me as I fall asleep on my left side according to the teachings of Ayurveda, and then I inevitably wake up on my back, right arm overhead, left hand on my belly. A blue pillow inspired by the paintings of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec supports my head. Above me, a toile reminder that when emotions are involved, one’s concept of time can be untrustworthy. From my right hand, a handkerchief drops, signaling the power of the unsaid. My feet are tipped with dense red running stitch, for speed and grounding. Similar in shape, my feet rest near the silhouettes of champagne flutes, an elixir for both truth telling and tall-tales. In the opposite corner, a thin barrier between me and the things that bug me- a bug with a loud voice! The cicada, like a canary in a coal mine, might be an ally. Golden armor juxtaposes with negative space depicting my skin. Eighteen fireflies watch over me. Some of this potent imagery was intentionally installed, and other aspects arrived subconsciously, revealing their alignment with the spell being cast long after they were stitched in place.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Cotton fabric and thread

Machine pieced, hand embroidered, hand appliquéd, and hand quilted

2024

62 × 63”

$6,000

This Diary Quilt began with a desire for efficiency as I returned to machine piecing. The repetition of blue vs colorful squares mimics balancing computer work vs sewing time, and urgent vs important tasks. Strip piecing and ‘pleats’ (seams that are folded and sewn) are techniques that mirror the streamlining I’ve been eager to prioritize throughout 2024 in the royal blue studio of my Artist’s Residency at the historic Pfister Hotel in downtown Milwaukee.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Phoenix, AZ (2025)

Awards:

Judge’s Choice (Tammie Rubin), QuiltCon, Phoenix AZ (2025)

2nd Place, Improvisation, QuiltCon, Phoenix AZ (2025)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

A vintage pink bed-covering from Japan, lace from France by way of the Oedo Market, a handkerchief, sashiko samplers, a Chiku-chiku sampler, a mended cardigan from Target circa 2009, indigo-dyed cotton, mixed textiles, and cotton thread

Hand pieced, hand embroidered, hand appliquéd, and hand quilted

2024

62 x 56"

$8,000


In the spring of 2024 I traveled to Japan for the first time, where I saw the cherry blossoms in full bloom. In anticipation, I’d practiced some sashiko samplers, and I’d learned chiku chiku stitching from my friend Takako Willden at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts. During my time in Japan I taught and was a student. I embroidered without looking while on a bus through the hilly countryside near Kyoto. I appliqued circles at the Niigata airport. In Tokyo, I hugged my friend Hikaru Noguchi for the first time, and played with a new backstitch mend on the ‘darning hamburger’ that she designed. I reminisced at home in Milwaukee as I completed the composition with ‘confetti,’ added a calendar noting a change in my new prescription medication during the making of the quilt, and persevered in mending a handkerchief that had been disintegrating since I purchased it at the Oedo market.


Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

Criss Cross, Portrait Society Gallery, Milwaukee, WI (2024)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Metallic fabric from Maria, green cotton from Japan, lace and a dress from France, remnants of a green dress I transformed into a shirt, a hankie made in Italy, red fabric from my grandmother, rabbits from Kat, a key from the airport steps, a spell for reclamation, and cyanotypes once touching the shells of Florida, the flowers of Sardinia, and my milagro pendants

Hand appliquéd, hand embroidered, and hand quilted

2024

60 x 61"

$8,000


This quilt casts a spell to reclaim my relationship with Italy. Visiting every year in my twenties was followed by a twelve-year estrangement from the country until I revisited Venice, Florence, Rome, and Bologna with my sweetheart Beau and led a retreat on the island of Sardinia in 2024. Hand embroidered text, tiny appliqué, on-site cyanotypes, layered fabrics, and lace artifacts all revealed a new story as I stitched them while traveling.


Exhibitions:

Criss Cross, Portrait Society Gallery, Milwaukee, WI (2024)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

A vintage bed-covering from Japan, my dad's shirt, silk from my grandmother, retired clothing, and cotton thread

Hand appliquéd, hand embroidered, and hand quilted

2024

69 x 64"

$8,000


This hand sewn Diary Quilt grew with me from August 2023 through February 2024, a time when I was navigating shoulder tendonitis, shifting from a home studio to a public-facing artist’s residency, launching an exciting yearlong quiltmaking course, and beginning my first daily prescription. For me, a Diary Quilt is different from an autobiography. Textile artifacts stand in as symbols, and perspective shifts from aerial map, to tracing, and to outlining a calendar. During a time when I desired to be nimble, like my favorite animal the rabbit, I cast a spell as I stitched.


Exhibitions:

Quilt National, Dairy Barn Arts Center, Athens, OH (2025)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Mixed fabrics, thread and yarn

Hand appliquéd, hand embroidered, and hand quilted

2023

43 X 43”

$3,000


In this series, I explore varying definitions of neutral color schemes from the realms of fashion and art.

In addition to this conceptual framework, this series is relaxing to sew, a palette cleanser from my more personal quilts. The 5 (so far!) quilts in this series are among my most 'modern,' with bold high contrast color, negative space, improvisation, and innovative construction techniques. This iteration in the series explores texture via quilting with yarn, pearl cotton, and sewing machine thread.


Exhibitions:

Winter Quilt and Fiber Show, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2024)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Mixed fabrics, cotton thread, and a bit of construction equipment

Hand appliquéd, hand pieced, hand embroidered, and hand quilted

2023

45 × 41”

Sold

A collaborative quilt made with Zak Foster celebrating a new-found sense of abundance in the life of two working artists. We joyfully explored the unexpected harmony between "no" and "yes" through bold colors and forms, personally significant textiles, and intricate hand stitching. This maximalist piece pulses with layered narratives and personal motifs—moon cycles, animals, vintage quilt blocks—to form a cohesive, celebratory composition of what it can mean to say YES to abundance. Sewing together in Milwaukee, and mailing this quilt cross-country, we pushed one another’s limiting beliefs as we took risks together saying, “YES, and!”

View our process on Instagram

Listen to our conversation about this quilt on Zak’s podcast, Seamside

Exhibitions:

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Phoenix, AZ (2025)

Awards:

Best Hand Quilting, QuiltCon, Phoenix AZ (2025)

Judge’s Choice (Alison Glass), QuiltCon, Phoenix AZ (2025)

Mixed fabrics, including 5 garments and a placemat, and cotton thread

Hand appliquéd, hand embroidered, and hand quilted

2023

62 × 62”

$8,000

A Diary Quilt like this is interesting in contrast to a memoir or autobiographical work of art, because a diary is a place to make plans, reflect, and has the potential to hold secrets. My pink plastic childhood diary used a padlock, and here I use abstraction in the same way. As I neared my 40th birthday in December, I decided to mark the moment by making this quilt.

There are 40 bits of applique and 60 embroideries in the bottom left corner. Selecting the word 'warmth' for 2023 led to incorporating pink sweaters. The title hints at aging, and also references grapes and raisins (on food scales in the quilt) as I became a Noom nerd. A long thin line contemplates moving boxes, which accidentally became a 5-sided box... reminding me that I tend to over-stress about moving. Regardless, I changed course and focused instead on 'streamlining' this spring.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Raleigh, NC (2024)

*Milwaukee Magazine included this quilt in an article about my work!

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Mixed fabric scraps, an IKEA curtain, navy wholecloth layer, cotton batting, cotton backing, and mixed thread

Machine and hand pieced, hand quilted

2023

66 x 64”

$6,000

Exhibitions:

Viewpoints on ARTservancy, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Milwaukee, WI (2024)

Winter Quilt and Fiber Show, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2024)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Cotton and silk fabric, handkerchiefs, a sugar sack, trim from hemming a bridesmaid’s dress, lace, and cotton thread

Hand appliquéd, hand embroidered, and hand quilted

2022

62 x 62”

$8,000

This is a love story quilt. This series is about casting spells to create healing and wellbeing, mostly in my body. In this quilt, my aim at the time of my 3-year dating anniversary with my partner, was for us to create a vision for our future together. Domestic textiles, furniture, dishes, cutlery, and textile artifacts allowed me to spark conversation, and navigate towards a partnership that was uniquely right for us.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

Whip-Stitch: Quilts are Contemporary Art, South Bend Museum of Art, South Bend, IN (2024)

Piece by Piece, Center for the Visual Arts, Wausau, WI, (2024)

Winter Quilt and Fiber Show, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2024)

Mend: the Work of Repair, James Watrous Gallery, Madison, WI (2023)

Practice in Progress, MARN Gallery, Milwaukee, WI (2023)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Atlanta, GA (2023)

Awards:

First Place in Improvisation, Winter Quilt Show, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2024)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Mixed textiles, including a handkerchief, kimono silk, a print by Jennifer Sampou, flour sack fabric, and a few handfuls of scraps, and cotton thread

Hand embroidered, hand appliquéd, hand pieced, and hand quilted

2022

59 x 56”

$6,000

I've had floaters in my eyes for three years, and this quilt is an attempt to eradicate and/or get used to them. The base fabric is white muslin, and the shapes that glow behind it are randomly placed dark fabric scraps from my studio. They are one of many ways that this quilt replicates the feeling of seeing with floaters.

I began the quilt as a passenger on a roadtrip with my friend Zak Foster. I looked out the window (to avoid car sickness) and embroidered without looking in the top left corner of the fabric. I think a lot about verbs when making quilts, and rather than visually depicting my experience, I depicted it by sewing in a way that was parallel to and a metaphor for the situation.

Casting a spell is part of this series in attempting to improve my wellbeing with sympathetic magic.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

Viewpoints on ARTservancy, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Milwaukee, WI (2024)

Heidi Parkes: Reuse, Reflection, and Storytelling in Cloth, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI (2023)

Heidi Parkes’s Quilts, special exhibit at The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show, Madison, WI (2022)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Cotton dyed with avocado, a tank top from 2009-­ ish, a found patchwork and handkerchief, lace, metal milagros, and cotton thread

Hand embroidered, hand appliquéd, hand weaving, hand-knotted needle lace, and hand quilted

2022

57 x 57”

$8,000

You can hear me tell the story of this quilt in my Quilt National Artist’s Talk (7 minutes)!

I began this piece while traveling in Santa Fe, New Mexico. My grandmother Mimi lived there during my childhood, and I loved visiting her. Now, as I continue to live in the Midwest, and Mimi is in Memory Care, I find myself grieving her loss while she’s in a liminal space. Time in Santa Fe has returned memories to me of the formative moments when she introduced me to art and hand appliqued and embroidered story quilts.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Phoenix, AZ (2025)

Quilt National ‘23: The Best of Contemporary Quilts at Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County, Morehead, MN (2024)

Quilt National ‘23: The Best of Contemporary Quilts at Canton Museum of Art, Canton, OH (2023)

Quilt National ‘23: The Best of Contemporary Quilts at European Patchwork Meeting, Espace de Tisserands, Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, France (2023)

Quilt National, Diary Barn Arts Center, Athens, OH (2023)

Awards:

2nd Place, Handwork, QuiltCon, Phoenix AZ (2025)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Mixed fabric scraps, including pieces of an IKEA curtain and the artist’s mother’s tablecloth, navy wholecloth layer, cotton batting, cotton backing, and mixed thread

Machine and hand pieced, hand quilted

2022

60 x 60”

$6,000

Static, Sand, Sky is part of a series in which I’ve collected my white scraps and pieced them together with minimal intervention, so that the viewer might sift through the shapes like an archaeologist. My habits around observing discards formed while I was a student at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2005) and is a practical method for reckoning with my intentions and impact. You can see examples of student work inspired by this quilt on Instagram at #hpscraps!

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Reuse, Reflection, and Storytelling in Cloth, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI (2023)

Land Reflections: ARTservancy Artists in Residence, Schlueter Art Gallery, Milwaukee, WI (2023)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Mixed textiles

Hand pieced, hand appliquéd, hand embroidered, and hand quilted

2022

36 x 36”

$3,000

This story quilt was made with my 4th pattern. The instructions take the maker through a 31-day Daily Practice with embroidery, appllique, and patchwork. Prompts include a running stitch doodle in a hoop, yo-yo's, depicting an article of clothing, tracing part of your body, and including an item that usually leaves home with you. The pattern launched with Creativebug in 2022, and you can see the quilts on instagram with #DailyPracticeQAL, and you can sew your own version here.

One of my favorite challenges for makers is to see how many stitches they can load onto a single pull of their needle.

Exhibitions:

Winter Quilt and Fiber Show, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2024)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Mixed textiles, cotton dyed with coffee, and cotton thread

Hand appliquéd and hand quilted

2022

67 x 61”

Sold

The 2021 calendar is reassembled as an appliqué container, with the negative space holding hand quilted lists and an expanse of cloth dyed with grounds from my new cold brew coffee habit. This piece was an opportunity to reflect on positive changes in my health, work, and relationships, to hopefully re-invite them into future years. There is a code in my red thread colors and dark green fabric selections.

Details to note are my vaccination in March, a shift in my website in November, and a special class online in December. I also observed when making the quilt, a relative calm in my schedule in the summer months- something I might not have noticed with my memory alone. This quilt was made possible with my paper and online calendars, my Fitbit, and other health apps.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Phoenix, AZ (2025)

Heidi Parkes’s Quilts, special exhibit at The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show, Madison, WI (2022)

Clothing, mixed textiles, and yarn

Hand embroidered, hand pieced, and hand tied

2022

61 x 62”

$6,000

This is the second quilt I've made with my Vignettes Quilt pattern. It's inspired by the elements, principles, and post modern principles of art. This quilt makes use of some vintage diapers from Japan (child and adult), a shirt from an old Milwaukee office, and eye embroideries sewn on an airplane. The ties add the principles of visual movement and unity. This was necessary, because the improvisational nature of the pattern led me to a composition that was surprisingly problematic. Rather than chopping it up, adding colorful fabric, and making other attempts to 'fix' it with piecing, I said 'yes and,' and went for the ties!

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Reuse, Reflection, and Storytelling in Cloth, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI (2023)

5th Annual Fiber Arts Biennial: Hide + Seek, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2022)

Heidi Parkes’s Quilts, special exhibit at The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show, Madison, WI (2022)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Mixed textiles, including a scrap from sewing a shirt on the airplane and the cuffs of Beau's hemmed pants, and cotton thread

Hand pieced and hand quilted

2021

60 x 60”

Not for Sale

A gift for Beau, featuring my embroidery of his drawings for his band, Attack Pony.

Cotton muslin naturally dyed with food scraps

Hand appliquéd and hand quilted

2021

50 x 50”

Not for Sale

Mixed textile scraps including a piece of tablecloth from the artist’s mother, navy wholecloth layer, cotton batting, cotton backing, and mixed thread

Machine and hand pieced, and hand quilted

2021

61 x 60”

$6,000

I accumulate a great many scraps of white fabric. Most of my quilts are backed with white cotton muslin, and after trimming and binding them, I’m left with 2” x 20’ strips of the stuff! This quilt and series is the result of tracking this waste and making the most of it. Scraps are minimally altered, thus revealing some circles, strips, triangles, and other odd bits. This quilt was made for my ARTservancy Artists Residency, and then became the basis of my Scrap Quilt Workshop online. You can see examples of student work inspired by this quilt on Instagram at #hpscraps!

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Atlanta, GA (2023)

Heidi Parkes’s Quilts, special exhibit at The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show, Madison, WI (2022)

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, Sisters, OR (2022)

Heidi Parkes, Gallery 224, Port Washington, WI (2021)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Linen fabric and cotton thread

Hand embroidered and hand quilted

2021

17 x 17”

$1,200

This embroidered wholecloth quilt is an aerial map of my favorite walk at Lake Park in Milwaukee, WI. I was an ARTservancy Artist in Residence there for a year, and this map highlights one of my favorite walks in the park. There is a small hill with a plaque from 1910 that attributes the hill as an earthwork and explains that at the turn of the century, there were other earthworks of animals and geometric forms on that land that had been recently destroyed. Sometimes on my walks I imagine what the land once looked like, and this embroidery is one such imagining. I juxtaposed images that I researched from the Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, and Menominee people, with images that I imagined while walking. I've also sewn current landmarks including my home, a golf course, soccer field, waterfall, my sweetheart's home, the Milwaukee River, and Lake Michigan.

Exhibitions:

Land Reflections: ARTservancy Artists in Residence, Schlueter Art Gallery, Milwaukee, WI (2023)

Heidi Parkes, Gallery 224, Port Washington, WI (2021)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Mixed textiles including many pieces naturally died by Edie Ure, and cotton thread

Hand appliquéd and hand quilted

2021

57 x 57”

Sold

Naturally dyed fabric, vintage textiles, lace, and embroideries adorn a white surface. This composition was inspired by my painting palette, as photographed a few years ago, when that was a favorite medium. The quilt is a daydream and a wish, meant to manifest me sewing in France one day.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes, Gallery 224, Port Washington, WI (2021)

Mixed textiles including silk organza, thread scraps, a vintage dress, and vintage indigo dyed cotton

Hand quilted

2021

36 × 24”

Sold

A commission intended for a lake home in Michigan. This piece was inspired by But, What Was it Like? and also influenced by the commissioner’s previous time spent in Japan, along with their interest in writing and memory.

Cotton fabric and mixed thread

Hand and machine pieced, hand appliquéd, hand embroidered, and hand quilted

2021

64 x 53”

$6,000

This quilt is the first made for my ARTservancy residency at Lake Park in Milwaukee, spanning October 2020 through September 2021. The quilt touches on the unique occurrence of a Halloween blue moon and the passing of RBG. It also notes my joy at experiencing an artists residency in Milwaukee, which I had longed to do for many years. The embroidery and applique juxtapose my memory of the leaves at the park alongside accurate tracings of the leaves, hinting at the ways my mind and memory can reconstruct the past both accurately and with gaps. It is my hope that when viewed in person, the viewer has a dramatically different experience both close and far from the quilt.

Exhibitions:

With Ma, Film Screening at MARN Art + Culture Hub, Milwaukee, WI (2023)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Atlanta, GA (2023)

Heidi Parkes’s Quilts, special exhibit at The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show in Madison, WI (2022)

Heidi Parkes, Gallery 224, Port Washington, WI (2021)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Silk organza, bojagi fabric, oQamoQa fabrics, cotton batting, and cotton thread

Hand pieced and hand quilted

2021

39 x 37”

Sold

This second Double Happiness quilt was an opportunity to show my skill at hand piecing a traditional bojagi with transparent silk. All of the knots are visible, but they reside underneath the top layer of the quilt. I thoughtfully placed all of the oQamoQa fabrics like confetti, and with more order, to express my own happiness. It was special to include violet, as I've struggled to appreciate that color in the past.

Exhibitions:

Double Happiness with Oqamoqa, Bukchon Hanok, Seoul, South Korea (2021)

Silk organza, bojagi fabric, oQamoQa fabrics, cotton batting, and cotton thread

Hand pieced and hand quilted

2021

40 x 38”

Not for Sale

The Double Happiness with oQamoQa project invited a few international artists to make bojagi with their joyful fabric scraps. We met on Zoom during the pandemic to organize this effort. For my first quilt, I chose to emphasize the 'double' in the quilt. I composed the fabrics with my then 4-year-old nephew, I began quilting while on an instagram 'live' with my friend Zak, and I used only 4 thread colors that were collaboratively chosen with my team from Stitching Together with The Makerie. This vivid quilt has lots of exposed knots and an area where it's a tie quilt, as if reaching out to touch others with antennae.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

Heidi Parkes: Reuse, Reflection, and Storytelling in Cloth, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI (2023)

Heidi Parkes’s Quilts, special exhibit at The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show, Madison, WI (2022)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Phoenix, AZ (2022)

Midwest Modern, Iowa Quilt Museum, Winterset, IA (2022)

Double Happiness with Oqamoqa, Bukchon Hanok, Seoul, South Korea (2021)

Cotton fabric, a vintage table linen, and cotton thread

Hand pieced, hand embroidered, and hand quilted

2021

42 x 41”

$3,000

This series explores neutral color schemes. Hand pieced and hand quilted, this is the most colorful in the series thus far.

Exhibitions:

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Raleigh, NC, February 22-25, 2024

Heidi Parkes: Reuse, Reflection, and Storytelling in Cloth, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI (2023)

Modern Quilt Exhibition, Bailey Contemporary Arts Center, Pompano Beach, FL (2022)

Heidi Parkes, Gallery 224, Port Washington, WI (2021)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Media: Linen fabric and cotton thread
Hand embroidered and hand quilted

Year Completed: 2021

Dimensions: 16 x 16”

Price: SOLD

Made in connection with my ARTservancy artists residency, and Stitching Together Kindness with The Makerie, this embroidered map depicts Lake Park, and my favorite sights along my most frequent walk at the park. My stitches linger in the places where my eyes and body linger at the park. My favorite views of the lake, the Native American earthworks, the lighthouse, waterfall, bridge with lions, and other landmarks are noted with my embroidery.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes, Gallery 224, Port Washington, WI (2021)

Media: Linen fabric and cotton thread
Hand embroidered and hand quilted

Year Completed: 2021

Dimensions: 16 x 16”

Price: SOLD

Made in connection with my ARTservancy artists residency, and Stitching Together Kindness with The Makerie, this embroidered map accurately depicts Lake Park, and a walk that I took with my partner Beau.

Mixed textiles including a scarf, vintage quilt blocks, and feed sacks, and mixed thread

Machine and hand pieced, hand embroidered, and hand quilted

2021

62 x 58”

$6,000

This is my third quilt pattern, the Vignettes Quilt Pattern. This is my first variation of the quilt pattern, and I filmed myself sewing and thinking through the quilt for a workshop for QuiltCon with the Modern Quilt Guild. The pattern emphasizes art vocabulary and a vignettes approach to piecing a quilt made with blocks of varying dimensions and sizes.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Reuse, Reflection, and Storytelling in Cloth, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI (2023)

Heidi Parkes’s Quilts, special exhibit at The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show, Madison, WI (2022)

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, Sisters, OR (2022)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Phoenix, AZ (2022)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Tea-stained cotton fabric and cotton thread

Hand pleated and hand quilted

2020

64 x 58”

Sold

This series explores neutral color schemes. This particularly neutral quilt was pieced with a single seam joining the same fabric. Then, I folded the fabric and pleated a variety of lines into it, including a circle in the top left corner. This quilt is activated by dense quilting in light and dark thread colors and a lot of exposed knots on the quilt's surface.

Exhibitions:

SEAMS: Contemporary Textile Artists, Portrait Society Gallery, Milwaukee, WI (2020)

A found incomplete quilt, gifted fabrics, and mixed thread and yarn

Hand and machine appliquéd, hand quilted, and hand tied

2021

58 x 74”

$10,000

This is a collaborative quilt made with Joe Cunningham. It was begun by an unknown maker, and never finished. It made its way to Joe's stash, and as Joe and I dreamed up a collaborative project together in 2016, it felt right to repair something together. It is a 2-sided quilt, with a lot of creative applique from Joe and me on the pink side, which was originally the 'back.'

Exhibitions:

Remnants, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2021)

*To purchase this quilt, contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com

Mixed textiles, including a piece of tablecloth from the artist’s mother, and cotton thread

Hand pieced, hand embroidered, hand appliquéd, and hand quilted

2020

61 x 61”

For price, inquire

This diaristic quilt tracked the pandemic for 100 days, beginning on April 7th 2020. This daily (sometimes weekly...) practice of adding to the quilt top helped me to track the days, and to remember that time was passing during a historical moment. This quilt contains moments that were both public and private, and sometimes simply reflected the shapes, colors, fabrics, and techniques that felt good to work with that day. The white lines of quilting help to marry the complex shapes, colors, and bits of text.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

Whip-Stitch: Quilts are Contemporary Art, South Bend Museum of Art, South Bend, IN (2024)

Piece by Piece, Center for the Visual Arts, Wausau, WI, (2024)

Future Fibers, Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, Milwaukee, WI (2024)

Time Memory Mythos, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL (2023)

With Ma, Film Screening at MARN Art + Culture Hub, Milwaukee, WI (2023)

Heidi Parkes’s Quilts, special exhibit at The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show, Madison, WI (2022)

SEAMS: Contemporary Textile Artists, Portrait Society Gallery, Milwaukee, WI (2020)

*Tommye McClure Scanlin included this quilt in her book Marking Time with Fabric and Thread: Calendars, Diaries, and Journals within Your Fiber Craft

Cotton and mixed textiles found while traveling in India, including natural block prints on silk, fabric shopping bags, a pillowcase, and a teabag, and cotton thread

Hand pieced, hand appliquéd, hand embroidered, and hand quilted

2020

84 x 86”

$9,000

In the fall of 2019, I traveled to India. It was a trip that I'd been longing to make for the last 6 years, and I traveled with a group led by my friend and yoga teacher Indu Arora- the red Yogsadhna bags from her business are easily seen in the quilt. I brought a large expanse of white fabric with me, along with some small gifted packets of fabric from my WMQFA friends Takako Willden and Ashley Brooks. Beginning in the top left corner, I strategically appliqued the fabric while on the airplane, under a mosquito net, and anywhere else I had a spare moment while traveling. I continued to find additional fabrics while I traveled, many of them remnants. A free calendar insert, scraps from a visit to the saree mending studio of Queen of Hearts India, shopping bags, and even a cotton teabag. Upon returning home, I had more space to lay out mementos, and to dig through my closets, finding cloth tidbits that had initially inspired my desire for the trip.

I quilted everything in March of 2020, and titled the piece mindfully. I learned the yogic concept of acknowledging the inhale, pause to transition, exhale, and pause from Indu. I'd embroidered the lungs in the center of the quilt because the air pollution in India stung my lungs for 5 weeks after I returned home. But mostly, I felt an incredible contraction of my personal space bubble when in India, and then felt a sudden and unexpected expansion of my personal space bubble while quilting in quarantine. I felt that my lungs were a microcosm for this time in my life. I'm grateful to have this quilt as a document of an eye opening and magical experience of travel.

Exhibitions:

Shift Change, Pacific Northwest Quilt and Fiber Museum, La Conner, WA (2024)

Heidi Parkes: Reuse, Reflection, and Storytelling in Cloth, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI (2023)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Atlanta, GA (2023)

Heidi Parkes’s Quilts, special exhibit at The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show, Madison, WI (2022)

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, Sisters, OR (2022)

Remnants, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2021)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Linen and cotton fabric, a scrap of mending gifted to the artist by friend Sarah Nishiura, and cotton thread

Hand pieced and hand quilted

2020

39 x 39”

$3,000

This series explores neutral color schemes. This first work was inspired by a 6x6" quilt from the 30x30x30 project in 2018, titled “Overlapping (For the First Time).” That was my favorite quilt from that series and it felt exciting to devote more space and time to the idea. The piecing was recorded in a time-lapse video and took exactly 3 hours, and would've been an example for a hand piecing workshop with the MQG sessions had the pandemic not cancelled the class. The complexity of the overlapping quilting lines compensates for any overly simplified bits of piecing, and this quilt felt like a new and exciting step creatively.

Exhibitions:

Mend: the Work of Repair, James Watrous Gallery, Madison, WI (2023)

SEAMS: Contemporary Textile Artists, Portrait Society Gallery, Milwaukee, WI (2021)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Cotton fabric naturally dyed with the artist’s menstrual blood and washed, linen, and cotton thread

Hand and machine pieced, hand quilted, and stretched

2020

40 x 30”

$4,000

This quilt is unique in the series. It's pieced in a very complex and intricate way. The piecing was done with both with a machine and by hand. There is a balancing act in the natural dye and in the piecing between human intervention/machines, and allowing nature to take its course and letting things happen. I wonder if this evolution in approach within the series is reflective of my healing process? As I was piecing this quilt, I thought it would be landscape style. Then, when I was nearly done piecing it, I realized that it should be portrait style instead--how interesting. Like a portrait of me. I've worked a lot to see this part of my health as a part of myself instead of 'othering' it, and referring to it as separate or bad. This quilt reveals so many subtle and subconscious changes in me that have led to better health.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Cotton fabric naturally dyed with the artist's menstrual blood and washed, and cotton thread

Hand pieced and hand quilted, stretched

2020

24 × 24”

$2,000

This piece and the previous piece in the series (no. 3) work beautifully as a diptych and were made in my garden, with a Jackson Pollock inspired hurling of menstrual blood onto dampened yardage. This exorcism of frustration, pain, anger, and fatigue is balanced by the almost celestial imagery that was cut from the the yardage with a viewfinder. The drips, splatters, and images in this work are truly a collaboration with nature and chance.

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Cotton fabric naturally dyed with the artist's menstrual blood and washed, and cotton thread

Hand pieced and hand quilted, stretched

2020

24 × 24”

$2,000

This piece and the following piece in the series (no. 4) work beautifully as a diptych and were made in my garden, with a Jackson Pollock inspired hurling of menstrual blood onto dampened yardage. This exorcism of frustration, pain, anger, and fatigue is balanced by the almost celestial imagery that was cut from the the yardage with a viewfinder. The drips, splatters, and images in this work are truly a collaboration with nature and chance.

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Cotton fabric naturally dyed with the artist's menstrual blood and washed, and thread dyed with medicinal herbs, including green tea, matcha, butterfly pea flowers, activated charcoal, and dandelion root

Hand quilted

2020

66 x 64”

$4,000

This second quilt in the series is a wholecloth quilt, made mostly with a paintbrush to apply my menstrual blood to wet fabric. I accurately map the ideal flows of female hormones, and improvisationally depict the calendar cycles that I use to track my health year after year.

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Cotton fabric naturally dyed with the artist’s menstrual blood and washed, and cotton thread dyed with medicinal herbs, including green tea, matcha, butterfly pea flowers, activated charcoal, and dandelion root

Hand pieced and hand quilted

2020

60 x 60”

$6,000

In my Magical Thinking series, hormonal frustration mixed with new-age advice to use my menstrual blood as natural dye. This markmaking cataloged the endless tracking of months and changing of habits to confront the friction of advocating for myself and creating change. I'm happy to report that this series worked to improve my hormonal health dramatically. This first iteration especially was focused on an effort to see beauty in my body, and to stop 'othering' parts of myself that I found frustrating. The thread is all dyed with medicinal herbs, in an effort to emphasize good health and beauty in the series.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Phoenix, AZ (2022)

SEAMS: Contemporary Textile Artists, Portrait Society Gallery, Milwaukee, WI (2021)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Mixed fabrics, including a piece of the artist’s mother’s tablecloth, and mixed thread

Hand pieced, hand appliquéd, hand embroidered, and hand quilted

2020

40 x 39”

Sold

I made this quilt with sequential videos from my first Quilt Along, which can still be seen on YouTube today. The Scavenger Hunt Quilt Pattern is my first quilt pattern, and there are various playful prompts throughout that inspire creativity and curiosity in the maker.

Mixed textiles

Hand pieced, hand appliquéd, hand embroidered, and hand quilted

2019

40 X 40”

$3000

This is my first-ever quilt pattern, the Scavenger Hunt Quilt Pattern, originally published in QuiltCon Magazine February 2020. I designed most of the pattern while traveling in India, and I quickly pieced it for the magazine before heading to Boulder, CO where I taught with The Makerie and quilted this quilt. The pattern has been made by many people as evidenced on instagram with #scavengerhuntquilt. I love the prompts that look at chronological fabrics, tracing your body, noting your birthday, and especially manifesting your desires. I made my manifestation section of me holding hands with someone, and within a month, I'd found my partner Beau.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Cotton fabric and cotton thread

Hand quilted

2019

40 X 40”

$1,500

Exhibitions:

Water at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2019)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Hand-dyed cotton fabric, cotton fabric, and cotton thread

Hand pieced, hand appliquéd and hand quilted

2019

65 X 55”

Sold

Exhibitions:

Water at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2019)

Linen fabric and cotton thread

Hand pieced and hand quilted, stretched

2019

36 X 24”

$2000

Exhibitions:

Pfister Finalist Exhibition, Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, WI (2019)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

A skirt that stopped fitting the artist, silk and cotton fabric, and cotton thread

Hand pieced, hand appliquéd, and hand quilted

2018

40 X 39”

$3000

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Reuse, Reflection, and Storytelling in Cloth, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI (2023)

Surfacing, The Draw, Appleton, WI (2019)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Nashville, TN (2019)

Awards:

Judge’s Choice (Mondo Guerra), QuiltCon, Nashville, TN (2019)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Hand-dyed cotton fabric and cotton thread

Hand pieced, hand embroidered, and hand quilted

2018

38 X 36”

Sold

Exhibitions:

Here Comes the Sun, Iowa Quilt Museum, Winterset, IA (2021)

Mixed textiles and cotton thread

Hand pieced, hand appliquéd, hand embroidered, and hand quilted, stretched

2018

6 X 6”

Sold

I made these 30 quilts, one per day, as a daily making practice during the first 30 days of 2018. Each quilt is hand-pieced and hand-quilted using a variety of fabrics, including table napkins, tablecloths, and scraps from other quilts. The process of creating these quilts was an opportunity to meditate on repetition, vulnerability, and the present moment, as well as to experiment with new techniques, like trapunto and overlapping lines of quilting.

Exhibitions:

30 X 30 X 30, Var Gallery, Milwaukee, WI (2018)

Quilt titles:
1. “Polar Bear Plunge” (SOLD)
2. “Full Moon” (SOLD)
3. “Winter Sun” (SOLD)
4. “Scraps (Evidence of Winter Cheeks)” (SOLD)
5. “The Risk it Took to Blossom” (SOLD)
6. “Studio Path” (SOLD)
7. “Repeatedly Realigning” (SOLD)
8. “Overlapping (The First Time)” (SOLD)
9. “Grandmother Patchwork” (SOLD)
10. “Breakfast” (SOLD)
11. “Scraps (Memories)” (SOLD)
12. “Does it Hurt? (Sometimes)” (SOLD)
13. “But, I Tried to Remember, Again” (SOLD)
14. “Beginning” (SOLD)
15. “Scraps (Winter Landscape)” (SOLD)
16. “Flower Fence, 2” (SOLD)
17. “Guts” (SOLD)
18. “Inside” (SOLD)
19. “Tails” (SOLD)
20. “Scraps (Saved)” (SOLD)
21. “Night Flight no. 8” (SOLD)
22. “Practicing in a New Place” (SOLD)
23. “Blue Moon” (SOLD)
24. “Grandmother Appliqué” (SOLD)
25. “Lining (The Inside Surface)” (SOLD)
26. “That Unsaid Thing” (SOLD)
27. “Lobsters (Lovers)” (SOLD)
28. “They’re Touching” (SOLD)
29. “How Much is a Lot?” (SOLD)
30. “Compartmentalization” (SOLD)

A vintage dress, silk fabric, mixed textiles, and cotton thread

Hand quilted and stretched

2018

36 X 36”

$4,000

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

Heidi Parkes: Reuse, Reflection, and Storytelling in Cloth, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI (2023)

Textile Tableau, Miller Art Museum, Sturgeon Bay, WI (2020)

Surfacing, The Draw, Appleton, WI (2019)

Pfister Finalist Exhibition, Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, WI (2019, 2018)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Bedsheets, a piece of the artist’s mother’s tablecloth, hand-knit wool, mixed textiles, and cotton thread

Hand pieced, hand appliquéd, hand embroidered, and hand quilted

2017

59 X 57”

$8,000

This quilt was inspired by a combination of traditional Baltimore Album quilts and Andy Warhol's painting Ethel Scull 36 Times. It celebrates my love of winter in 36 blocks. The quilt is entirely hand pieced with pearl cotton and crochet thread, and it employs the running and whip stitch.

Exhibitions:

The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show, Madison, WI (2022)

Surfacing, The Draw, Appleton, WI (2019)
QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Nashville, TN (2019)

By Hand, Blue Bar Quilts, Middleton, WI (2018)

3rd Annual Fiber Arts Biennial: Keeping Warm, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2017)

Awards:

Honorable Mention, The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show, Madison, WI (2022)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Silk fabric, mixed textiles, and cotton thread

Hand pieced and hand quilted

2017

91 X 92”

$9000

This is a 4-layer quilt: a backing, batting, many small pieces of fabric, and a top layer made of silk, cotton, and a repurposed window curtain. This quilt is made without glue, and the colorful bits of fabric are held in place exclusively with the quilting.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Reuse, Reflection, and Storytelling in Cloth, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI (2023)

The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show, Madison, WI (2022)

Warm Remembrances, Quilt Alliance’s Quilters Take a Moment, virtual (2021)

4th Fiber Arts Biennial: On Wisconsin, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2019)

Surfacing, The Draw, Appleton, WI (2019)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Pasadena, CA (2018)

By Hand, Blue Bar Quilts, Middleton, WI (2018)

Color, Piecework Collective, New York City, NY (2017)

Awards:

Honorable Mention, The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show, Madison, WI (2022)

Third Place for Handwork, QuiltCon, Pasadena, CA (2018)

**To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Created by Joe Cunningham, Stephanie Fortin, Luke Haynes, Heidi Parkes 

A thrifted quilt, natural dye, fabric, yarn, and thread

Machine and hand pieced and quilted, and mended

2016–24 

81 x 80”

For price, inquire

In fall 2016, Luke e-mailed us about a collaboration to mend, destroy, and mail a quilt. Luke cut a slash, Joe mended it with his machine and cut a grid, Stephanie unquilted and dyed the fabric, I reassembled, hand quilted, and cut holes in the quilt, keeping the stolen bits for myself, and then, a few years later, Luke repaired the holes and completed the quilting. This quilt was another step forward for me in becoming messier! Since high school, I was often aesthetically drawn to rugged, drippy, messy art, but I found myself repeatedly being very careful, tidy, and precise. Previously, as I'd begun to leave my knot tails on my quilts, I would cut them to about an inch. Here, I let them lay long as a hint toward the moments when I ran out of thread and as a reference to the works of Andy Warhol and my favorite "dripsters," whom I'd emulated while making paintings in the early 2000s. I was also inspired by quilter Coulter Fussell, who I'd exhibited with in the Piecework Collective in New York, to re-quilt along the same lines that had originally been quilted through.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

An Ikea curtain hemmed by the artist’s mother, a vintage curtain thrifted by the artist’s mother, cotton thread, batting, and backing fabric

Hand embroidered and hand quilted

2017

56 X 38”

$3000

I made this quilt as I was processing the 2016 election. You can read and listen to more about the quilt on the Threads of Resistance website.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

Heidi Parkes: Reuse, Reflection, and Storytelling in Cloth, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI (2023)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Nashville, TN (2019)

Threads of Resistance, traveling exhibition in 12 locations, beginning at the New England Quilt Museum, Lowell, MA (2017)

Awards:

First Place in Handwork, QuiltCon, Nashville, TN (2020)

*Thomas Knauer included this quilt in his book Quilt Out Loud (2023)!

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Cotton fabric and cotton thread

Hand quilted

2017

46 X 44”

$2000

Exhibitions:

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Pasadena, CA (2018)

By Hand, Blue Bar Quilts, Middleton, WI (2018)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Cotton fabric and cotton thread

Hand quilted

2017

42 X 41”

Sold

Exhibitions:

By Hand, Blue Bar Quilts, Middleton, WI (2018)

GIFT, Jazz Gallery, Milwaukee, WI (2017)

Heidi Parkes and Lee Heinrich, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2017)

Materials: Cotton fabric and cotton thread
Hand quilted

Year Completed: 2017

Dimensions: 40 X 40”

Price: SOLD

Exhibitions:

Water, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2019)

By Hand, Blue Bar Quilts, Middleton, WI (2018)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Pasadena, CA (2018)

Heidi Parkes and Lee Heinrich, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2017)

A hospital blanket, nylons, a bra strap, hospital restraints, keys, a paint brush, ear buds, handkerchiefs, beads, mixed textiles, and cotton thread

Hand pieced, hand appliquéd, hand embroidered, machine quilted

2016

65 X 78”

$5,000

Sewn for exhibition on the Changing Aging tour, this quilt explores the subject of aging within institutional and gentler networks of care. This is emphasized with handwork and machine quilting. It’s hard to know how to support the elderly, and to find the line where caretaking ends, and confinement begins. This restraint of aging begins early in life with control tops, and climaxes with tight quarters, physical restraints, and medications.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Reuse, Reflection, and Storytelling in Cloth, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI (2023)

Toured from 2016-2018 with Changing Aging and Kyrie Carpenter

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Bedsheets, cotton fabric and cotton thread

Hand and machine pieced, hand appliquéd and hand quilted, stretched

2016

12 X 12”

$400

Hand quilted with re-purposed bed sheets, this series of quilts investigates the unconscious mind. I was inspired by an analogy from the book, Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix, in which the subconscious mind is an ever-present influence, similar to the presence of the stars, even when they are not visible. We often speak about the stars as though they “come out” at night, but in fact, they are always there. This is a truth that we know, but cannot observe with the naked eye. So it is with our conscious and unconscious thoughts. When forming new habits and ways of being in the world, we must repeatedly remind ourselves of the truths that we’ve learned in order to override previous assumptions. The hand quilting in this series shifts from neat lines, to billowing clouds, to the links between constellations- or the forming of new neural pathways. The exposed knots I use in this series are inspired by Rachel Carey George’s Work-Clothes Quilt, one of the quilts of Gee’s Bend, which I saw in person at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Exhibitions:

It Was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Bedsheets, cotton fabric and cotton thread

Hand and machine pieced, hand appliquéd and hand quilted, stretched

2016

12 X 12”

Sold

Hand quilted with re-purposed bed sheets, this series of quilts investigates the unconscious mind. I was inspired by an analogy from the book, Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix, in which the subconscious mind is an ever-present influence, similar to the presence of the stars, even when they are not visible. We often speak about the stars as though they “come out” at night, but in fact, they are always there. This is a truth that we know, but cannot observe with the naked eye. So it is with our conscious and unconscious thoughts. When forming new habits and ways of being in the world, we must repeatedly remind ourselves of the truths that we’ve learned in order to override previous assumptions. The hand quilting in this series shifts from neat lines, to billowing clouds, to the links between constellations- or the forming of new neural pathways. The exposed knots I use in this series are inspired by Rachel Carey George’s Work-Clothes Quilt, one of the quilts of Gee’s Bend, which I saw in person at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Exhibitions:

It Was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

Bedsheets, cotton fabric and cotton thread

Hand and machine pieced, hand appliquéd and hand quilted, stretched

2016

12 X 12”

Sold

Hand quilted with re-purposed bed sheets, this series of quilts investigates the unconscious mind. I was inspired by an analogy from the book, Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix, in which the subconscious mind is an ever-present influence, similar to the presence of the stars, even when they are not visible. We often speak about the stars as though they “come out” at night, but in fact, they are always there. This is a truth that we know, but cannot observe with the naked eye. So it is with our conscious and unconscious thoughts. When forming new habits and ways of being in the world, we must repeatedly remind ourselves of the truths that we’ve learned in order to override previous assumptions. The hand quilting in this series shifts from neat lines, to billowing clouds, to the links between constellations- or the forming of new neural pathways. The exposed knots I use in this series are inspired by Rachel Carey George’s Work-Clothes Quilt, one of the quilts of Gee’s Bend, which I saw in person at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Exhibitions:

It Was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

Bedsheets, cotton fabric and cotton thread

Hand and machine pieced, hand appliquéd and hand quilted, stretched

2016

36 X 36”

$3000

Hand quilted with re-purposed bed sheets, this series of quilts investigates the unconscious mind. I was inspired by an analogy from the book, Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix, in which the subconscious mind is an ever-present influence, similar to the presence of the stars, even when they are not visible. We often speak about the stars as though they “come out” at night, but in fact, they are always there. This is a truth that we know, but cannot observe with the naked eye. So it is with our conscious and unconscious thoughts. When forming new habits and ways of being in the world, we must repeatedly remind ourselves of the truths that we’ve learned in order to override previous assumptions. The hand quilting in this series shifts from neat lines, to billowing clouds, to the links between constellations- or the forming of new neural pathways. The exposed knots I use in this series are inspired by Rachel Carey George’s Work-Clothes Quilt, one of the quilts of Gee’s Bend, which I saw in person at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Exhibitions:

By Hand, Blue Bar Quilts, Middleton, WI

Pfister Finalist Exhibition, Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, WI (2017, 2018)

It Was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Bedsheets, cotton fabric and cotton thread

Hand and machine pieced, hand appliquéd and hand quilted, stretched

2016

20 X 20”

Sold

Hand quilted with re-purposed bed sheets, this series of quilts investigates the unconscious mind. I was inspired by an analogy from the book, Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix, in which the subconscious mind is an ever-present influence, similar to the presence of the stars, even when they are not visible. We often speak about the stars as though they “come out” at night, but in fact, they are always there. This is a truth that we know, but cannot observe with the naked eye. So it is with our conscious and unconscious thoughts. When forming new habits and ways of being in the world, we must repeatedly remind ourselves of the truths that we’ve learned in order to override previous assumptions. The hand quilting in this series shifts from neat lines, to billowing clouds, to the links between constellations- or the forming of new neural pathways. The exposed knots I use in this series are inspired by Rachel Carey George’s Work-Clothes Quilt, one of the quilts of Gee’s Bend, which I saw in person at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Exhibitions:

Members Show, Museum of Wisconsin Art, West Bend, WI (2016)

It Was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

Bedsheets, cotton fabric and cotton thread

Hand and machine pieced, hand appliquéd and hand quilted, stretched

2016

24 X 24”

Sold

Hand quilted with re-purposed bed sheets, this series of quilts investigates the unconscious mind. I was inspired by an analogy from the book, Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix, in which the subconscious mind is an ever-present influence, similar to the presence of the stars, even when they are not visible. We often speak about the stars as though they “come out” at night, but in fact, they are always there. This is a truth that we know, but cannot observe with the naked eye. So it is with our conscious and unconscious thoughts. When forming new habits and ways of being in the world, we must repeatedly remind ourselves of the truths that we’ve learned in order to override previous assumptions. The hand quilting in this series shifts from neat lines, to billowing clouds, to the links between constellations- or the forming of new neural pathways. The exposed knots I use in this series are inspired by Rachel Carey George’s Work-Clothes Quilt, one of the quilts of Gee’s Bend, which I saw in person at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Exhibitions:

Points of Departure, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI (2016)

It Was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

Bedsheets, cotton fabric, and cotton thread

Hand and machine pieced, hand appliquéd, and hand quilted

2016

66 X 135”

$9,000

Hand quilted with re-purposed bed sheets, this series of quilts investigates the unconscious mind. I was inspired by an analogy from the book, Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix, in which the subconscious mind is an ever-present influence, similar to the presence of the stars, even when they are not visible. We often speak about the stars as though they “come out” at night, but in fact, they are always there. This is a truth that we know, but cannot observe with the naked eye. So it is with our conscious and unconscious thoughts. When forming new habits and ways of being in the world, we must repeatedly remind ourselves of the truths that we’ve learned in order to override previous assumptions. The hand quilting in this series shifts from neat lines, to billowing clouds, to the links between constellations- or the forming of new neural pathways. The exposed knots I use in this series are inspired by Rachel Carey George’s Work-Clothes Quilt, one of the quilts of Gee’s Bend, which I saw in person at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

Heidi Parkes: Reuse, Reflection, and Storytelling in Cloth, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI (2023)

By Hand, Blue Bar Quilts, Middleton, WI (2018)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Savannah, GA (2017)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Bedsheets, cotton fabric, and cotton thread

Hand and machine pieced, hand appliquéd, and hand quilted

2016

60 × 60”

Sold

Hand quilted with re-purposed bed sheets, this series of quilts investigates the unconscious mind. I was inspired by an analogy from the book, Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix, in which the subconscious mind is an ever-present influence, similar to the presence of the stars, even when they are not visible. We often speak about the stars as though they “come out” at night, but in fact, they are always there. This is a truth that we know, but cannot observe with the naked eye. So it is with our conscious and unconscious thoughts. When forming new habits and ways of being in the world, we must repeatedly remind ourselves of the truths that we’ve learned in order to override previous assumptions. The hand quilting in this series shifts from neat lines, to billowing clouds, to the links between constellations- or the forming of new neural pathways. This is the first quilt where I used exposed knots, a choice that was inspired by Rachel Carey George’s Work-Clothes Quilt, one of the quilts of Gee’s Bend, which I saw in person at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

Pfister Finalist Exhibition, Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

Cotton cloth and cotton thread

Hand pieced and hand quilted, stretched

2016

13 × 11”

Sold

As a child, my family would drive North many times each summer to visit my grandfather’s cottage on Pretty Lake. This fiber art piece alludes to the process of cobbling together childhood memories. The vintage fabric in the center is a reference to my mother’s maiden name of Moosbrugger, and the other images of rabbits, strawberries, flowers, 1970s floral sheets, vintage flour sack prints, and lattice work all remind me of happy times on the road to Wisconsin.

Exhibitions:

Waysides, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI (2016)

Hand-dyed cotton, cotton fabric, and cotton thread

Machine pieced and hand quilted, stretched

2016

16 X 16”

Sold

Exhibitions:

It Was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

Hand-dyed cotton, cotton fabric, and cotton thread

Machine pieced and hand quilted

2015

61 X 60”

$3000

This quilt was inspired by Two-Sided Quilt Blocks by Polly Bennet, one of the Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers. I was struck by how Bennet’s quilting stands out against the solid fabrics and blends into the prints. I dyed the black fabric using RIT dye and chose fabrics I had found during a trip to Seoul, South Korea. One of the fabrics on the quilt includes an image of a prince, and I was reminded of the story of The Little Prince. In the story, the fox wants to be tamed by the prince so that he can become familiar with him and look forward to seeing him. I had been inspired by the quilts of Gee’s Bend since art school in the early 2000s, and I felt a desire, like the fox’s, to be familiar with the improvisational style of quiltmaking of Polly Bennet and the other Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

Heidi Parkes and Lee Heinrich, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2017)

It Was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

Origin 8: Abstract Artists Invitational, Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Linen and cotton fabric, and cotton thread

Hand pieced and hand quilted, stretched

2015

13 X 11”

Sold

Exhibitions:

It was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

Pfister Finalist Exhibition, Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

Opening Exhibition, Permanent Baggage, Milwaukee, WI (2015)

Linen and cotton fabric, and cotton thread

Hand pieced and hand quilted, stretched

2015

13 X 11”

Sold

Exhibitions:

It was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

Pfister Opening Exhibition, Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

Opening Exhibition, Permanent Baggage, Milwaukee, WI (2015)

Cotton fabric and cotton thread

Machine pieced and hand quilted, stretched

2015

48 X 36”

$1500

Exhibitions:

It Was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

Opening Exhibition, Permanent Baggage, Milwaukee, WI (2015)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Linen and rayon blend fabric, and cotton thread

Machine pieced and hand quilted

2015

48 X 34”

$1,800

This quilt uses improvisational piecing and techniques inspired by Seminole patchwork to create an aerial view. Visible horizontal hand-quilting represents latitude lines. The series is titled for the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. 

Exhibitions:

SEAMS: Contemporary Textile Artists, Portrait Society Gallery, Milwaukee, WI (2020)

Origin 8: Abstract Artists Invitational, Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Linen and rayon blend fabric, and cotton thread

Machine pieced and hand quilted

2015

57 x 75"

Sold

This quilt uses improvisational piecing and techniques inspired by Seminole patchwork to create an aerial view. Visible horizontal hand-quilting represents latitude lines. The series is titled for the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

Exhibitions:

Origin 8: Abstract Artists Invitational, Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

Threshold, Charles Allis Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI

Linen and rayon-blend fabric, and cotton thread

Machine pieced and hand quilted

2015

57 x 58"

Sold

This quilt uses improvisational piecing and techniques inspired by Seminole patchwork to create an aerial view. Visible horizontal hand-quilting represents latitude lines.  The series is titled for the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

Exhibitions:

Threshold, Charles Allis Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI (2015)

Cotton fabric and cotton thread

Machine pieced and hand quilted

2015

61 X 57”

$3000

The sandy color in these 35+ prints unifies them visually as they move like a wave across the surface of this quilt. From a distance, clusters of connected fabrics appear to vibrate, creating the illusion of movement, or even a wave. Up close, further details reward the viewer: kittens, ponies, pheasants, flowers, maps, scenes from Japan, block printed waves, and toile lovers with cherubs. This archetypal strip quilt, alternating a blue pinstripe sashing with wide strips of complex piecing, conceals its own simplicity. This approach yielded to the constraints of my sewing environment, while using a bathroom door and blue painter’s tape as my design wall during an artist residency in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Exhibitions:

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, Sisters, OR (2022)

Heidi Parkes and Lee Heinrich, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2017)

Warped Milwaukee 8th Annual Fiber Art Exhibit: Elements, ABK Weaving Studio, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

Origin 8: Abstract Artists Invitational, Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

It Was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Linen cloth and cotton thread

Hand quilted, stretched

2015

13 X 11”

Sold

Exhibitions:

Pfister Finalist Exhibition, Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

It Was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

A vintage linen tablecloth, linen fabric, and cotton thread

Machine pieced and hand quilted

2015

58 x 60"

$3,000

My dear friend Laura found this tablecloth, and gave it to me in hopes that it would inspire a quilt. Within two weeks, this quilt was pieced. The charming vintage print features flowers, bees, and a chain link fence. The fence motif repeats in the three shades of gray fabric, the yellow line work, and the hand quilting done in a checkerboard-like grid pattern. The piecing design was inspired by Deborah Pettway Young’s “Roman Stripes” variation (the second side of the quilt linked!)

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

By Hand, Blue Bar Quilts, Middleton, WI (2016)

It was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Media: Linen and rayon-blend fabric, and cotton thread
Machine pieced and hand quilted

Year Completed: 2015

Dimensions: 58 x 58"

Price: SOLD

Antoine de Saint-Exupery is one of my favorite creative people, and this quilt's title is a nod to his book, Night Flight. As a very young girl, my mother read The Little Prince to me, and before she took me on a real flight, she showed me Georgia O'Keeffe's painting Sky Above Cloud's IV at The Art Institute of Chicago. Every time I fly I am reminded of the magic and beauty in these two works of art.  Staring out the window of a plane gives me such joy, that the journey is as much reward as the destination. This is the first work in a series. It is modeled after the idea of flight, rather than a specific location, expressing the mystery of passing over multiple unknown locations in the night. It is hand quilted horizontally to reveal the latitude lines necessary in navigation.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

QuiltCon Traveling Exhibition, national exhibition. (2016)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Pasadena, CA (2016)

Awards:

Second Place for Improvisation, QuiltCon, Pasadena, CA (2016)

Linen and linen-rayon blend fabric, a strip of yellow and pink floral from the artist’s grandmother Mimi, and cotton thread

Machine pieced and hand quilted

2015

55 x 61"

Not for Sale

This quilt pattern was inspired by ”Blocks and Strips” by Loretta Pettway, a quiltermaker in Gee's Bend Alabama. The fabric was purchased in the Manhattan garment district in New York, and in Chicago, except for the thin yellow strip with flowers. That piece was collected by my grandmother many years ago. The dark expanses of the quilt create an opportunity to see the improvisational hand quilting, while the long gray strip features only even horizontal stitches. Symbolically, the work speaks to transition; old and new, sunrise, regular vs. complex.

Exhibitions:

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Pasadena, CA (2016)

Cotton fabric scraps, including a piece of the artist’s mother’s tablecloth, and cotton thread

Machine pieced and hand quilted

2014

61 x 58"

Sold

My favorite painting is Mark Rothko’s untitled orange work at The Art Institute of Chicago.  Enveloped by the expanse of color, my eyes love to linger on every drip and transparency. This white quilt explores the subtleties found in the piecing, stitching, and fabric of the quilted textile. It is made, in part, with pieces of my mother's tablecloth left from making "Beginners." This is the first quilt in my series of scrap quilts, including Cream, Sugar, Snow and Static, Sand, Sky.

Exhibitions:

New Threads, Concordia University, Mequon, WI (2016)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Pasadena, CA (2016)

Cotton fabric, silk fabric, synthetic fabric, and cotton thread

Machine pieced

2014

40 x 40"

Sold

Inspired by the concept of a quilt interacting with light, this hanging panel investigates the visual movement created with varying segments of geometric shape and opacity. Bojagi are usually transparent, a traditional Korean version of the quilt.

Mixed textiles, including a piece of the artist’s mother’s tablecloth, and cotton thread

Machine pieced and hand quilted

2014

64 x 61"

SOLD

“Medallion with Center Bars” by Gee’s Bend quiltmaker Polly Bennet influenced this contemporary composition. The feeling and color story come from the film, “Beginners,” by Mike Mills. An essential component of that concept is the white fabric from my mother’s repurposed tablecloth from most of the holiday meals during my childhood, contrasted with the floral print with berries and hummingbirds that I found at Mood Fabrics in the garment district in New York, NY.

Exhibition:

Opening Exhibition, Permanent Baggage, Milwaukee, WI (2015)

Cotton fabric, including an ice cream print by Thomas Knauer, fabric hand-dyed by the artist, and cotton thread

Machine pieced and hand quilted

2014

56 x 58”

Sold

Initially inspired by “Blocks and strips” by Amelia Bennet, one of the quilt makers of Gee’s Bend, this quilt is also reminiscent of a Gerhard Richter painting, with its horizontal strip piecing. The colors center around the ice cream print fabric by Thomas Knauer, with many humorous and vintage prints like jumping foxes, and my grandmother’s floral fabrics. 

Exhibitions:

It was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

*Thomas Knauer later included two of my quilts in his books: Places Unfold in his book Why We Quilt (2019), and There’s Something Between Us in his book Quilt Out Loud (2023)!

Linen fabric and cotton thread

Machine pieced and hand quilted

2014

58 x 61”

$3,000

The painterly qualities of this quilt are guided by artists like Mark Bradford and Joan Mitchell, who also investigate the feeling of a place. This herringbone-patterned linen is segmented into areas of varied density, representative of the spatial arrangement found in an urban environment.

Exhibitions:

It was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

Wisconsin Artists Invitational, Timothy Cobb Fine Arts, Milwaukee, WI (2015)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Linen fabric and cotton thread

Machine pieced and hand quilted

2014

61 X 62”

$3,000

At a distance, the piecing of this quilt looks very traditional, an even grid of blues. Upon closer inspection, however, the viewer discovers that each section of the outer grid is constructed uniquely. This creates variation within the same. I was inspired to make this grid as a representation of the expansiveness of an ocean, in part by Agnes Martin. This work references the endlessness of water, and the latitude and longitude lines we use to corral it.

Exhibitions:

Water, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2019)

It was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

Wisconsin Artists Invitational, Timothy Cobb Fine Arts, Milwaukee, WI (2015)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Cotton fabric, including cotton hand-dyed with turmeric, coffee, tea, and RIT dye, cotton embroidery floss, and cotton thread

Machine pieced and hand quilted

2014

64 x 61"

$3,000

When I first became a quilter, I moved from the suburbs to Chicago, and loved traveling on Lakeshore Drive. Glimpsing the view of Lake Michigan from my car, I found that the sky and water were ever changing, yet simultaneously reliable. Not a typical waterfront, the shoreline is corrugated metal and poured concrete, crumbling a bit from the seasonal freeze and thaw. I created texture by folding and sewing additional seams (pleats) within the color blocked structure of the quilt. The horizontal quilting lines have an ombre effect, creating atmospheric perspective as the lines gradually shift from navy blue at the top to light cream at the bottom.

Exhibitions:

Water, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2019)

Heidi Parkes and Lee Heinrich, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2017)

By Hand, Blue Bar Quilts, Middleton, WI (2016)

It was Felt, Prosper, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

Origin 8: Abstract Artists Invitational, Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Cotton fabric and cotton thread

Machine pieced and hand quilted

2014

36 x 36”

Not for Sale  

This quilt features the bright colors of strawberries and flowers, with red quilting. Improvisationally pieced, the quilt starts out with a traditional log cabin pattern, and then like Jazz music, it creates abstractions and variations on that theme.

Made for my niece Isabel; her mom says it is perfect for 'tummy time.'

Linen and cotton fabric, and cotton thread

Hand and machine pieced, hand embroidered, hand appliquéd, and hand quilted

2014

59 x 59”

$6,000

Thirty-six squares centered on the theme of ‘Wanderlust;’ this quilt explores the concept with aerial views of personal and public landmarks. Mapping patterns of movement, highways, umbrellas at the beach, and cities with hand embroidery and applique add a heightened level of detail to this quilt.

The top right square uses Google Earth to look down at my former home in Naperville near the train tracks. For the center square, I imagined looking up at the constellations in the sky.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

Modern Quilting national traveling exhibition, opening at Dairy Barn Arts Center, Athens OH, and closing at Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA (2018)

MQG Exhibition, San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, San Jose, CA (2017)

Origin 8: Abstract Artists Invitational, Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, WI (2016)

QuiltCon presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, Pasadena, CA (2016)

Awards:

First Place in Handwork, QuiltCon, Pasadena, CA (2016)

*Thomas Knauer included this quilt in his book Why We Quilt (2019)!

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Cotton fabric hand dyed with wine, and cotton thread

Hand quilted

2014

52 x 52"

$1,800

This whole cloth quilt was hand-dyed with red wine and hibiscus tea. Quilted with DMC floss in many shades of green to highlight the grapes used to dye the fabric.

Exhibitions:

The Fine Furnishings Show, through the Milwaukee Art Quilters, Wauwatosa, WI (2015)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Cotton fabric hand-dyed with coffee, tea, and RIT dye, bamboo crochet thread, cotton embroidery floss, and polyester thread

Machine pieced and hand quilted

2013

63 x 60”

Not for Sale

My dad and I often traded handmade gifts. For his birthday in 2013, I made this, my third-ever fabric quilt, in an intensely focused week while home on break from my job as a high school art teacher. A two-sided quilt, one side depicts wooden planks and tree growth rings; on the other, a watery expanse and a hand-embroidered inscription. When he passed in 2018 at 69-years old, this quilt returned to me. It was a source of solace, knowing I’d expressed my love for him while I could. It brings back memories of mending his blue jeans and collaborating on woodworking projects. As I changed careers to quilting in 2014, my dad cheered me on, and I now marvel at this quilt’s influence on my life.

A backing made from a found, hand-­pieced Log Cabin quilt top made with flour-­sack fabric, mixed textiles, a sheep from Matthew Lanci, polyester hand quilting thread, and Aunt Lydia’s crochet cotton

Hand embroidered, machine pieced, hand quilted, and hand mended

2013

83 x 68”

Not for Sale

This is my first-ever hand quilted fabric quilt. Making this quilt was true love. I was inspired by Loretta Pettway’s “Housetop Variation” from 2003; she’s one of the @geesbendquiltmakers. On the back side, I used a found, hand pieced log cabin quilt top made with flour sack fabric that my grandmother bought at an estate sale for $37.50.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

Heidi by Johanna Spyri, white out, glue, and crochet cotton

Collaged, embroidered, and hand crocheted

2004

30 x 30”

$3,000

In 2004 I took my first Fibers class at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with Diana Guerrero-Maciá. In Sampling, we looked at the history of samplers, crazy quilts, and textiles through the lens of a DJ sampling music and using appropriation in their work. Thus, I sampled my namesake, the book Heidi by Johanna Spyri. Each chapter of the book became a quilt block and I cut, colored, redacted, and collaged to explore the progression of the book. In class, I constantly worked with paper, thread, an exacto blade, and glue. As a class field trip, Diana invited us to her home in Chicago's Ukrainian Village, and seeing her basement studio where she made her work was a formative experience in realizing the benefits of a textiles practice and a home studio. A decade later, I attended her exhibition at the Elmhurst Art Museum, and being a high school art teacher myself, I was moved that Diana recognized me and remembered my name. It was one of many small moments that inspired me to take a leap of faith, changing careers and pivoting to be a full time quilter.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.

Embossed copper, wire, photographs, book pages, mixed media, polyester batting, and a repurposed curtain

Hand sewn and hand tied

2003

51 x 48”

$3,000

I made this quilt in my college metal-working class when I was given the assignment to make something that was as important on the inside as it was on the outside. The copper sheets were embossed with lace, which was a technique that has previously excited me with ceramics and is part of what ultimately drew me to studying fiber arts later in school.

Exhibitions:

Heidi Parkes: Soft Magic, Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts, Cedarburg, WI (2025)

*To purchase this quilt, visit the online shop. If you don’t see this quilt in the shop currently, it is likely on exhibition; contact Heidi at heidiparkesart@gmail.com for more information.