I visited La Conner Quilt and Textile Museum yesterday. The Tudor-style Victorian mansion was fabulous to see by itself, but the old quilts on display along with the Japanese quilt exhibit made the visit perfect!
The mansion almost did not make it after being gutted and turned into apartments for 30 years. One of the tenants caused a major fire that took out the roof and third floor.
There was talk of tearing down the old place, but one man saw a historic site that needed to be saved and started a restoration group.
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| I just love the colors in this quilt! |
There are two exhibits at the museum from Japan right now. One is "Ainu Embroidery" and the other is "At Play - Asobi: Quilts from Japan". The Ainu Embroidery also included reverse appliqué. I spent a lot of time studying the artwork. I think I'm going to give reverse appliqué a try sometime soon. The embroidery consisted of "Cord" stitching or what I call couching. The coat in the photo below is all reverse appliqué and cord embroidery.
The quilts were extraordinary and made from silk, loose woven cotton, and hemp. One quilt had me and another woman with our noses only inches from its work. The quilt was filled with small scenes of the old life in Japan. Beautiful gardens, detailed robes, hair, and their faces were just amazing. I could have spent more time looking and studying all the quilts, but the museum was very busy that day.
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| No photos allowed, so here's some samples from a post card. |
Remember the cat material I bought a while ago? Well, I decided to make a Welcome wall-hanging. I used an old photo of Dusty playing on the scratch post as my kitty model.
I want to use large letters so people can see them at a distance. I'm still working on the size and style I want to use.
In the meantime, I am making a border using a paper foundation since the border's pattern is very small and there are a lot of pieces.
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| Prrrrr! |
Happy Quilting!
