"Workt by Hand": Hidden Labor and Historical Quilts" at the Brooklyn Museum

No, that's not a typo in the title of this post, that's really the name of a new exhibit of 35 American and European quilts from the the museum's own collection on display through Sept. 15.
Here are some of the highlights, in photos of course!

This red-and white quilt, Robbing Peter to Pay Paul, is from 1850 and looked to be in near-perfect condition. Really striking.

This Album Quilt, left, was also finished around 1850. The colors were so vivid that it looked like a contemporary quilt to me.

The quilt below, called "Baskets Quilt," dates to 1860. I was impressed by its condition, and by the terrific flowers that had been appliqued into each of the baskets.

The quilt to the left is called Touching Stars, also from 1850. Don't the colors look modern?

















The quilt below, called Star of Bethlehem Quilt, is from 1830. The flowers on the quilt were fussy-cut and appliqued onto the white background around the star.

The crazy quilt below, which was totally amazing, was made by an American, Mary Stinson, and finished in 1880. The photo below is from the museum website, but the detail photo below is mine. I wanted to remember some of the amazing embroidery she'd done....all of the flowers were different, and she'd used different colors of thread to create shading. It was really impressive.

  

This photo is from the museum website. The quilt is simply labled "Pictorial Quilt" and it's from 1795 and is made of linen. The photo doesn't do it justice: up close, the little figures are wonderful, full of detail and life.

East Street quilted and bound

I'm so happy to be able to report that I just finished binding my Easy Street quilt and gave it its first wash. Hurrah! There was nobody home to help me hold it so I could take a decent vertical photo of it, so I put it on the floor and stood on a table to take this photo. It give you the idea, anyway.

I think I'm going to give this quilt to my husband Mac, who'd a huge sports car fan, because he says it reminds him of the famous (according to him ) "hippie Porche." Here's a photo of the car----I guess I can see a resemblance:

So this quilt will stay in the family. Now I have to cross my fingers that Mac doesn't try to buy the car to go with it.

I got some great news today, that I am pretty sure is not an April fool's joke. I was one of the winners in the March Block Lotto drawing, and I've won a bunch of really handsome 3-color rectangular blocks. Hurrah again! I think these will make a perfect quilt for my father, who'd got Alzheimers disease and is living in a care facility. I can't wait to put it together and give it to him.

Vacation quilting---Utah edition

I've been in Park City, Utah, right outside Salt Lake City, for the past few days on a ski vacation with my husband and youngest son. We took one day off from skiing to go into Salt Lake City so my husband could visit a client, and I grabbed the chance to visit a quilt shop I found on the internet called Pipers Quilts & Comforts. It was adorable! Here's a photo of the shop:

One of the most charming things about it was that they'd hung quilts outside in front of the store, and inside the store's front porch. Here are photos of a couple of them that I really loved.


 I only had a few minutes to shop, as I had to drive back to pick up my husband from his meeting, but I spotted a fantastic book that I've already found really useful. It's called Tile Quilt Revival, by Carol Gilham Jones and Bobbi Finley. Here's a photo:

 I think I may try to make one of the quilts from this book during a quilting retreat I'm going on in May. It's all applique, which I'm struggling to get better at. I'm working on the Dear Jane quilt, which requires a fair amount of applique, and mine always looks pretty lame. (But I know, better done than perfect!)
Anyway, this book also had clear and good instructions on how to applique, so I've been studying it. I tried to use what I learned while making these two Dear Jane blocks when I was not out skiing. Here's a photo:

For you Dear Jane followers, these blocks are B8 and G1. These aren't perfect either, but they are a bit better than the earlier ones. They'll look better too when they're trimmed and well-pressed.
That's all for now. I'm heading home to Brooklyn tomorrow---I'll be glad to see my other son and my dog, but I'll miss having time to relax, ski and sew.

Cheerful log cabin blocks

I made these bright log cabins for a member of  String Thing Along, the blog where string quilters can show their stuff. Once in awhile we make blocks for a charity quilt that one of the members is pulling together, and this time the request was for l2-inch log cabin blocks with a yellow corner. I've only finished these 2 so far, but I'd love to make a few more if I can squeeze it in. These are easy and fun to make and great stash-busters!

Block Lotto: March

I love these blocks! Whoever wins them will be able to make a smashing quilt!
As always, I hope it's me, but as I just won a heap of mug blocks it's a little selfish to be hankering after these as well. ;-)

Big bag completed!

This is my new "Mondo Bag." I bought the pattern for it at a quilt shop in Vermont last year, and had put it away for some time in the future.....but at my last guild meeting I couldn't resist buying a package of coordinated batik strips that I thought would be perfect for the project and presto! Here it is.
The pattern comes with printed interfacing that you fuse the squares onto, and then you sew it afterwards, so it's less work than it looks. But it took me a long time, because I kept making mistakes that I had to rip out. I actually sewed the entire bag together incorrectly, and when I saw that what I'd made was not a bag at all but more like a crooked sculpture I had to take out EVERY seam and start again. In retrospect I think all the mistakes were my fault---I just didn't really read the directions carefully enough, and the bag construction was not what I expected. I think I could make a second one in about 1/3 the time it took me to make this one.
Now I feel like a real quilter, with a big quilted bag of my own to take to guild meetings. I can't wait to show it off at the March meeting.

Sandy Quilt

I was excited to see this photo online posted by Nancy Rogers who put together a Sandy Quilt that I made some blocks for. Here it is:

I can see some of my blocks in there---they were fun and easy to make. Nancy did a great job!