Monday, January 23, 2006

What I did in the holidays...

A couple of weeks ago, I returned from a month travelling in America visiting my husband's family for Christmas. Despite taking some hand piecing with me, I didn't do much in the way of quilting but there was plenty of inspiration. Such as the "jellies" at the acquarium at Monterey...


















They were moving so quickly, it was hard to get them in focus but you get the general idea. Needless to say, I can feel a "jelly" quilt, or two, coming on.

When I got to Pittsburgh, an enormous parcel of fabric that I had ordered from Hancocks of Paducah was waiting for me. It was like Christmas (OK, it was Christmas) and I got to pull them all out; stroke them; put them into colour families; cut small samples into a reference sheet; refold them; pack them up again and post them off to Ohio. We will not be reunited again until July when I will attend a 5-day improvisations workshop with contemporary quiltmaker extraordinaire - Nancy Crow Nancy unashamedly requests her students bring 100+ yards of fabric to her workshops and, as I rarely work in flat solids (being a hand dye and bali batik afficionado myself), I had much shopping to do.

Fortunately, I was able to make a sidetrip to Pennsylvanian Dutch/Amish country. Home of many fabric stores and, to keep David happy, some good boutique breweries such as the Lancaster Brewing Company .

Since our last visit to Lancaster in 2003, the new Quilt & Textile Museum has been established. The display of Amish quilts from the museum’s permanent collection (from the former Esprit quilt collection) was most interesting. Just the right number of quilts and the right amount of information, without incurring museum fatigue. I highly recommend it.

1 Comments:

Blogger Elle said...

100 yards of fabric?! Wow!

I think jellyfish are beautiful too. I can see how they'd be an inspiration for a quilt.

January 30, 2006 2:56 pm  

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