Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure/privilege of heading to Huntsville's Museum of Art to participate in our guild's "quilting demo day" in collaboration with a special exhibit the museum has in its gallery, as well as an exhibit of locally made quilts of our guild members. It was quite fun. Four of us brought some handwork and whiled the afternoon away stitching and chatting and answering questions about our respective pieces and quilting and the guild in general. I had a productive afternoon. I finished up quilting on one of the blocks from My Orange Crush . . .
Marked and readied another of the blocks for hand-quilting . . .
And made great progress on basting the pieces for my Starburst block!
Enough so that I came home and finished it before bedtime. Hurrah! Next will be to whip the pieces together (they're currently taped to my mat) and then I'll machine stitch on the purple sashing, setting the block on point. I'm very pleased with how it's turning out.
So, stitching-wise, it was a fabulous afternoon! But the best benefit of demo-ing was the opportunity we had to get into the museum for free and check out the exhibits ... most particularly "Crazy Quilt" 1887 by Susan Keziah Hobbs Fennell Henderson (whew, imagine having to sign that!) . . .
Isn't it absolutely gorgeous? I hated that there was glass between the quilt and I because I *so* longed to touch and pet it!
A closeup of the borders here . . .
Oh my gosh, I could have spent hours looking at this quilt -- it must have taken her *years* to finish this! There were tons of questions I'd have loved to have asked the quilter. I was blown away by the level of detail in each different block. Her seam treatments were just gorgeous. Here are some closeups for you to drool over (good thing it *was* under glass):
 |
| Sweet little basket of embroidered flowers! |
 |
| Required spider and spiderweb! She used metallic silver thread for the web. This is 1887! |
 |
| There were LOTS of initials, including this "R" surrounded by sweet daisies! |
 |
| I counted a total of four different fans stitched into the quilt. |
 |
| There were also a number of different butterflies, but this was my favorite! |
 |
| This embroidered spray of flowers was simply GORGEOUS! Her ribbon work was exquisite. |
 |
| The rooster, center, sits next to characters that look oriental. |
 |
| Or perhaps hieroglyphics? Or some secret code??!!! The year, 1887, is embroidered in that same patch. |
I really hope I have an opportunity to go back and look at this piece of art again. Every time I looked at it, something new caught my eye! It was like the "I Spy" of crazy quilts! Each of us who participated this afternoon received a lovely card, featuring the quilt. I'll share a photo of the card, only because it's a great bird's eye view of the entire quilt center:
Yup, a good day. Even if my favorite part of it remains under glass!
:)
