Laura Hopper

Laura Hopper (she/her) is a quilter, curator, and writer. She is the Creative Operations Manager for Suzy Quilts, a quilt pattern business and website. She also works as a freelance quilt and textile writer. Her writing has appeared in Tatter, Curated Quilts, Craft Industry Alliance, Benzie Design, Quiltfolk, Modern Patchwork magazine, QuiltCon magazine, BERNINA’s WeAllSew blog, an award-winning museum collections catalog, and in over 40 museum exhibits. Laura is the lead editor and author of the book “Modern Quilts in the Second City: Ten Years of the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild.” Prior to launching her career in the craft and quilt industry, she was an award-winning museum curator with previous experience at the Newberry Library, the Michigan State University Museum, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian, and more. Most recently, Laura was the curator at the Pick Museum of Anthropology at Northern Illinois University, an academic museum with a strong collection of textiles. Her exhibits won recognition from the Illinois Association of Museums and the American Association of State and Local History, and in 2018 she was the recipient of NIU’s Women Who Make a Difference Award in recognition of her work on a quilt exhibit. A community quiltmaking project she co-facilitated at NIU is the subject of a short documentary called "The Women in Science Quilt Project." She has been a frequent speaker at national museum and quilt conferences, and has served on the board of directors or on committees for national museum and quilt nonprofits. Laura believes that museums are not neutral and her curatorial philosophy centers on radical collaborative approaches to activist curating. After training for a decade in her youth to be a classical violist, Laura now makes quilts inspired by music. Her quilts have been juried into QuiltCon, the International Quilt Festival, and other quilt shows. She is co-president of the national nonprofit Quilt Alliance and a Past President of the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild. When she’s not making quilts, Laura is a voracious reader, felt crafter, and needlepointer. Her quilting is chronicled at @sonicstitches. Laura lives near Chicago with her family.