The New England Quilt Museum

After visiting Baltimore, New York City, and Boston, we headed a little north to go to the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, MA. They have a large collection of quilts that they display and they also host travelling exhibits.

When we were there they had an exhibition of Butterfly Quilts curated by the Texas Quilt Museum, which is on display here until July 10. It was interesting to see the combination of contemporary art quilts along with some vintage traditional quilts.

They don't allow published photos of the quilts, so if you want to see photos of quilts, you'll have to visit their website.

Lowell was a picturesque town with red brick buildings and brick streets. We had a lovely lunch before heading home.

Quilt exhibits in Ohio & Kentucky

Me with my quilt “Kings Yard Farmers Market” at the Artist as Quiltmaker XVI exhibit in Oberlin, OH. See the little red dot just below the left corner? That’s right, it’s sold!

We’re recently visited several quilt exhibits in Ohio and Kentucky, so I thought I’d share it with you so you can take a virtual tour. Most of these exhibits are still happening, with the last ones closing at the end of July, so if you want to take an actual trip, you can do that.

OBERLIN, OH :

From left: “T-Formations” by Sara Bearup-Neal, “Sedona #2” by Margaret Anderson, “Granite Series: Portal” by Lura Schwarz Smith, “Echoes of Important Things” by Christy Gray, and “Wilted 3” by Georgie Cline.

We went to Oberlin because I had a piece in the Artist as Quiltmaker XVI show. I was excited because it’s the first exhibit I’ve been in that has produced a catalog! We went for the two receptions where I was able to meet several of the other quilters.

41 pieces artists from 19 states were selected from over 400 entries, and Ohio artists were well represented.

The exhibit goes through July 27 and is presented by The Firelands Association for the Visual Arts, located in the New Union Center for the Arts, 39 South Main St. in Oberlin. The gallery is open Tue–Sat, 11a–5p; Sun 1–5p.

Also in the New Union Center for the Arts in the south gallery is the FAVA Folding Festival, featuring origami including some origami quilts by Christiane Betten. The show runs also goes through July 10 and has the same hours.

The yard in front of the New Union Center for the Arts has been quilt bombed. Volunteers created and then hung a few hundred quilt squares on the large oak tree, along the railings, and on the fence in front of the building.

The knitters also got in the act. All of the pointy parts of the fence were covered with knitted cozies.

Just down the street at the Oberlin Public Library there are four display cases with small quilts in them. Their Twisted Logic: Two-Color Miniature Quilts by The Twisted Stitchers feature several intricate miniature quilts with traditional patterns and piecing. This show goes through June 8.

Quilted Narratives by Marty Young, who is an AQM XVI exhibitor, is a collection of small art quilts that tell their own stories. The show goes through July 27.

The Oberlin Public Library is located at 65 S. Main St. in Oberlin. It is open M-Th 10a-8:30p, F-Sa 10a-6p, and Su 1-5p. If you go, be sure to check out the enclosed patio area with a lovely wall mosaic.

Down the street the other direction you can see Text, Line, and Traces by Tina Cassara, the juror for the AQM XVI show. Her art is in the Ginko Gallery & Studio through July 27. The gallery is located at 19 S. Main St. in Oberlin and is open T-Sa 10a-6p and Su noon-5p.

A few blocks away in first floor display the Oberlin Science case of the Oberlin College Science Center is Marking Nature: from the dye studio of Sue Copeland Jones who is also a AQM XVI exhibitor. The exhibit will be up through July 27. The building is located at W. Lorain and Woodland St. in Oberlin.

TROY, OH :

New Quilts from an Old Favorite is an annual exhibit and contest held by the National Quilt Museum (in Paducah, KY). The block selected for 2013 was “Jacob’s Ladder.” Part of the travelling exhibit is at the Troy-Hayner Cultural Center through June 15.

The Troy-Hayner Cultural Center is located at 301 West Main Street in Troy. It is open T-Sa 9a-5p, M-Th evenings 7-9p, and Su from 1-5p. Admission is free.

PADUCAH, KY :

Paducah, KY, is so far west that it’s almost in Missouri. It’s also known as Quilt City, USA because it is home to the National Quilt Museum and it is where the American Quilters Society started. AQS still holds one of their several annual quilt shows in Paducah. During the second to the last week in April, the town doubles in size. I hear you have to make motel reservations a year in advance.

Me with my quilt “Inside of a Dog” at the Fantastic Fibers exhibit in Paducah, KY.

As well as being a pilgrimage for me, we went to Paducah because I had a piece in the Fantastic Fibers exhibit at the Yeiser Art Center, just a few blocks away from the National Quilt Museum.

We were blown away by the fantastic fiber pieces in the show. Unfortunately the show has closed, but you can see all of the 59 entries online on their website. I felt Ohio was well represented in this show, also.

The Yeiser Art Center is located at 200 Broadway in the historic Market House, which also house a history museum and a theater. There are art galleries and restaurants on either side of the brick-lined streets. It is open T-Sa from 10a-5p when they have a show. Admission is $5.

Of course we also went to the National Quilt Museum. They own over 320 quilts and usually only have 50-60 of them on display at a time. These really are some of the best examples of quilting in the country, and they own several of the award winning quilts entered in the annual American Quilter Society shows. Quilts that probably take years to produce. Most of them are more traditional in style, and many are quilted by hand. We were in awe of the miniature quilts, and we also enjoyed the travelling show from the European Patchwork Meeting.

The National Quilt Museum is located at 215 Jefferson St. in Paducah. They are open M-Sa from 10a-5p. Admission is $11.

Paducah is also home to many fabric stores including Hancock’s of Paducah which has over 30,000 square feet of almost every fabric imaginable.

"Quilts" in Atlanta

My husband attended and presented at a conference in Atlanta, GA and I went along for fun. Here are some of the "quilts" I found.

You might remember a few years back that Atlanta hosted the Centennial Olympics. Part of the area has been turned into Centennial Park, and I was thrilled to see a quilt-theme in the park. There are five terraced plazas, each with a different theme: Quilt of Olympic Spirit, Quilt of Nations, Quilt of Dreams, Quilt of Remembrance and Quilt of Origins. Each plaza is marked by quilt squares etched in granite.

They also have a terrace fountain that passes through them and there is a Virginia Reel quilt pattern etched in the stones in the bottom of the pools.

The Atlanta History Center had a section on Folk Art and included both a traditional quilt and a modern Watercolor quilt, which looks like it might have been made for the Centennial Olympics as the heart appears to be on the highest step of a three-step podium, so I guess this quilt won the gold medal.

I also visited the High Art Museum.  You aren't allowed to publish photos taken in the museum on the web, so I didn't take any photos there.  They also had an area dedicated to folk art and I think I remember seeing one quilt in that section.

We stopped at Red Hen Fabrics, the largest quilt shop in Georgia, where I bought a few pieces of fabric. It’s located in Marietta which is 20 miles north of Georgia on I-75, so it really wasn’t out of our way at all.

If you're interested in reading more about my trip to Atlanta, visit my travel blog here.
.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Buying Fabric on the West Coast

The Itsy Bitsy Quilt Shop in Ferndale, CA

This summer we spent 3 weeks in July on the West Coast. Our main reason for going was to go to the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in Sister, Oregon, which I had a quilt in. (Many of these links go to my travel blog, Pack Up the Car.)

-----

The Stitchin' Post is a quilt shop in Sisters, and one of the main sponsors of the Outdoor Quilt Show. It is also the shop that Valori Wells and her mother Jean own. There was a long line to buy fabric during the show, but I toughed it out and bought 1 half-yard cut and 1 quarter-yard cut of batik fabric (above).

The Stitchin' Post is located at 311 W Cascade Ave. in Sisters, OR and is open Mon.-Sat. from 9 am-5 pm.

-----

While we were in Ferndale, CA, we went into a jewelry store. While browsing, the clerk asked where we were from. I told her we were from Ohio. So she asked what brought us out here and I replied that we came to go to the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. The clerk, Holly, mentioned that she was also an art quilter and asked what sewing machine I have. I have a Juki, which is not that well known of a machine, and not only had she heard of it, she has not 1 but 2 Juki machines.

Holly’s parents operate a small quilt shop in downtown Ferndale, the Itsy Bitsy Quilt Shop. So of course we went across the street to see her art quilts and I bought 2 half-yard cuts of batik fabric (above).

The Itsy Bitsy Quilt Shop is located at 580 Main St. in Ferndale, CA, (in the same building as the Kinetic Sculpture Museum) and is open Mon.-Sat. from 10 am- 5 pm and Sun. from noon-4 pm.

-----

The Fabric Depot, located in Portland, OR, is the largest fabric store in the nation, with over 1.5 acres of fabric and over 800 batiks. I bought 14 quarter-yard cuts (12 novelty and 2 batiks) and a one-yard cut that was also a batik (batiks above). And I managed to get out of the store after just an hour and 15 minutes.

The Fabric Depot is located at 700 SE 122nd Ave. in Portland, OR and open Mon.-Sat. 9 am-9 pm. and Sun. 10 am-7 pm.

-----

The Latimer Quilt and Textile Center is located in Tillamook, OR, which is on the Oregon coast. They have a research library, exhibition space, a gift shop that sells items made by the members. There is also a room with several looms set up for the members to use. I bought a few small items in the gift shop, including a fat quarter of the hard-to-find North by Northwest Postcard fabric by Timbleberries (above).

The women there also asked why I was in the area, and when I told them that I had a quilt in the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. They asked if I had photos of the quilt and since this was after the show I had something better, I had the actual quilt. I got my quilt "Twilight Descends" out of the car and they all oohed and aahed appropriately which I appreciated.

Tillamook County also has a “Quilt Trail” which is a driving tour of quilt blocks that have been painted on barns and other interesting buildings. The women at the center were very proud of this trail, which is the first Quilt Block Trail on the west coast. I had to mention that I’d met Donna Sue Groves, the woman who originally came up with the idea for the Quilt Block Trails and lives in Adams County, Ohio.

The Latimer Quilt and Textile Center is located at 2105 Wilson River Loop Rd. in Tillamook, OR and is open Mon.-Sat. 10 am-5 pm and Sun. noon-4 pm from April to October, and Mon.-Sat. 10 am-4 pm and is closed on Sundays from November through March. The Quilt Trail is always open but best viewed during daylight hours.

-----

And finally, this is a photo of the very colorful bedspread in the Motel 6 that we stayed at in Redmond, OR (half an hour drive from Sisters).

Apparently Motel 6 had some fabric made that has their logo in it (I added the yellow box to the photo), and they had bedspreads made using this fabric. We stayed at another Motel 6 in Seaside, OR and it had the same bedspreads.

-----

The new wine glass coaster sets I made from the 12 quarter yard cuts of novelty fabric from the Fabric Depot.

Final fabric count: 16 quarter-yard cuts, 3 half-yard cuts and 1 one-yard cut for a total of 6.5 yards. And none of it had the Motel 6 logo on it.

If you're interested in reading more about my trip to the Pacific coast, visit my travel blog here.

One of Many: My Art Quilt at the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show

This is me and my quilts "Twilight Descends" at the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in Sisters, Oregon on July 10, 2010.

They had over 1300 quilts and hung them all in 1.5 hours.

One thing that might have made the hanging task easier was that they don't use hanging sleeves, they use clothespins. I appreciated that because when I shipped my quilt to them, I didn't have to worry about shipping the hanging rod. So that makes the above quilt "Every Quilt MUST Have a Sleeve" by Karen Flamme even more humorous.

For you non-quilters, the sleeve is a piece of fabric on the back of a quilt that allows you to put a hanging rod through the back and hang it on a wall without any of the hanging hardware showing. In the above quilt she shows a pattern and a sleeve like you'd put on a shirt or a dress. And for those of you who don't know me well, I have NO idea how I'd make a sleeve for a shirt or a dress.

One of the things I noticed was that some of the quilts were grouped by color or theme. I especially love the colors of the quilt on the right, with a little appliqued flower on the bottom left corner.

Other quilts were arranged by the quilt block used. It was really neat to see how different some quilts can look even though the quilter used the same quilt block. Here's part of the Log Cabin section.

This quilt was really impressive. I didn't get an actual measurement, but I think the individual blocks were about 3" x 3", and they seemed to be mostly applique.

To see more photos of the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, visit my travel blog Pack Up the Car.

Quilts in Louisville, Kentucky

My husband attended and presented at a conference in Louisville, KY and I went along for fun. One of the houses we toured, the Conrad-Caldwell House in Historic Louisville had very intricate parquet floors and several of the designs are also quilt patterns. I think the tour guide thought I was a little odd, since I was taking photos of the floors and not the furniture.

I also visited the Pyro Gallery, which is an artist co-operative and all artists have some art on display in the lower gallery, with a rotating exhibit of the members on the upper gallery. When I was there the featured artists were both amazing fiber artists, Bette Levy and Melinda Snyder. If you click on their names you can see photos of their quilts, but they are so much better in person. I caught the exhibit on the last week it was open.

Louisville has several glass artists including three groups that share the studio space at Glassworks. They have glass blowers, flamework artists and an architectural glass group. You can view all of them in their studios and also take classes including a walk-in workshop where I made these magnets.
Louisville also has a lot of public art out on the streets in the downtown area, including this sculpture which is in front of the Kentucky Center for Performing Arts.
I was also really happy to find Dee's, a large, family-owned craft supply store. They didn't have a lot of fabric, but there bead and scrapbooking sections were impressive.

If you're interested in seeing more photos from my trip to Louisville, visit my new travel blog.