Day 8.2 - Quilt exhibition, American Folk Museum

The American Folk Museum is next door to MoMA. They had a big banner outside announcing an exhibition of quilts, called "Quilts: Masterworks form the American Folk Art Museum". As a quilter, I was keen to see it. It wasn't included in my NYPass, so I returned once it had expired. Unfortunately, so had the exhibition, the previous weekend. More precisely, it was a two-part exhibition, with Part 1 closing April 24 (Easter Sunday), and Part 2 opening May 10 (after I'd returned home).

However, the woman at the desk did alert me to a smaller exhibition at a branch location at Lincoln Square/Columbus Circle, a short bus ride away. The "Super Stars: Quilts from the American Folk Art Museum" exhibition was small, but worthwhile.

Just a quick pedantic aside: Quilting is the act of sewing layers together - usually a top layer, batting (the padding), and the bottom layer - often in decorative patterns. Patchwork is the sewing together of small pieces of fabric, often similarly shaped to create patterns, making up the top layer. There are other techniques for making quilt tops, such as appliqué, which involves sewing one piece on top of another.  In this case, the curators generally mean patchwork quilts when they say 'quilt', and discuss the patterns created by the patchwork rather than the quilting itself. </pedant>

As the name indicates, it focuses on the theme of stars in patchwork quilts. The introductory blurb talks about drawing inspiration from nature blah blah blah. In my experience, stars are popular because they are fairly simple patterns using simple tessellation and bold colours to create dramatic compositions. Photos were allowed, and I took plenty, some of which worked, and some were marred by reflections and the like. If you would like to see larger versions of the pics below, simply click on the image - it will take you to a full size one. Alternatively, you can click on the link above, where the Musuem's website has photos of some of the quilts. The website also has the name of the artist (where known), approximate date, composition, size and holding.

The one I like most was the Amish one, which understandably if unfortunately was behind glass. Which means my photos have lots of reflections. But if you can see past them, you can get a sense of the gorgeous muted colours, and painstaking quilting.

The Star of France Quilt (see also here) was made from a commercial kit some time in the 1930s. The curatorial notes suggest it was inspired by a military decoration of the Napoleonic era, reinterpreted in an art deco style.

You can see some of the quilting in this detail pic:

A quilt with a similar colour-way is the Star of Bethlehem with Satellite Stars Quilt, (see also here) made around the same time as the one above. Open up the larger image to see the quilting detail, a snippet of which is below.

I have a fondness for crazy quilts, but lack the embroidery skills (ie patience) to do one justice. Crazy quilts are made from random scraps of fabric, with the seams oversewn with many types of embroidery. The full size image is not great, but the detail one shows the amount of work involved.

Here's another crazy quilt. I've pinched the main pic from the Museum's website, as mine didn't work so well

This quilt is made from appliquéd stars, made up of diamonds sewn together, which in turn are made up from random bits of fabric.

As anyone who's ever pieced a patchwork quilt top, it's fiddly work requiring precision cutting and precision sewing.

I know for an absolute screaming fact that I wouldn't have the patience or precision required to make this Seven Sisters Quilt. Each group of seven stars is assembled separately (you can see the hexagonal outline of each group in the detail below), and each star within the group is pieced from six diamonds, each around an inch across its short axis.

Perhaps one of the most fun ones was a Hawaiian style quilt. These are made by folding a piece of fabric, cutting out patterns, then appliquéing the resulting cut-out. (Like making a paper snowflake, and then some.)

Made by Mary Borkowski in 1979, this one is called Stars Over Hawaii. Not truly symmetrical, it has some lovely whimsical details.

There were plenty of others, but this post will probably already have taken a week to load. I hope you like them as much as I do.