Textiles and the Triplett Sisters

Previously the La Conner Quilts museum, the Pacific Northwest Quilt & Fiber Arts Museum, is celebrating twenty years. To go with the new name, they have a new slogan: Imagine. Create. Inspire. Any nonprofit reaching the five year mark is a cause for celebration, let alone twenty years. Congrats to all who had part in making the museum happen and thrive! Besides the museums two other quilts exhibits Pieces of the Past: 20 years of Collecting and Time Flies...20th Anniversary Festival Challenge exhibit,  QTC was honored to be selected to help with the celebration. Pieces of the Prairie one of our traveling exhibitions will be there. This exhibit will give viewers in the Seattle area a firsthand look at some of the quilts from our new book, Pioneer Quilts: Prairie Settlers’ Life in Fabric. It is...

I come from a theatre background, so it isn’t unusual for lines from plays or songs from musicals to pop in my head. Especially because sometimes the song catches the mood and moment more adequately than I can.  Such was the case when Kay and I went to visit the Chintz Exhibition at Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. A moment when the breath is taken away…then the song begins. In the musical Oliver, the boys have been starving and craving something other than gruel. Thus begins the songs of dreams of food or in this case dreams of chintz.  If you know the tune to Food, Glorious, Food…sing along! Chintz, glorious chintz, Red colors and mustard! While we're in the mood -- Step too close you’ll get busted! Hats, coverlets, and tunics What next is the...

Located in Amsterdam, it isn’t a surprise that the museum is known for the best collection of Dutch art in the world. However, with more than 8,000 artefacts on display in 80 wings...it is almost too much eye candy to be seen in one day. Kay and I were quite determined and mapped out a plan of attack. First we inquired about the textiles on display to be sure we’d included all of those. The attendant couldn’t think of many textiles on display, but dutifully marked a few spots. (We later learned, it wasn’t that they didn’t have wonderful textiles, just in relation to the vastness of the collections, it was a smaller percentage.) Understanding that the textiles might be limited, we began taking photos of art with early examples of clothing. Ten statues at the...

Because Americans have long claimed the quilting tradition, we like to think of it as ours. We sometimes forget that other locations had quilts long before we existed as a country or even as colonies. An Moonen, who has worked in textile conservation or as a curator for museums for almost 50 years is happy to explain that Dutch quilts have been around since the 1200’s.   The author of multiple books on Dutch quilts (author of: A History of Dutch Quilts, Beddelgoet: Netherlands Antique Quilts 1650-1900, etc.) she has spent her life working with and collecting quilts, textiles and samplers. So when we were visiting with her and she gave us a peak at her collection, it was great fun. Another treat in store for us, was an exhibition she was of having of quilts...

Chintz fabric is a love, love, love of mine. So I spend a lot of time looking at these fabrics. Whenever there is an exhibit, a book, or a retreat on chintz, I try to make it a priority. When I was working on our book Chintz Quilts from the Poos Collection, I took the opportunity to assemble a list of fabrics that repeatedly appeared in quilts. I named it “Famous Fabrics” and I continue to track these beauties, whenever I see them. When Leah Zieber’s 2017 Chintz retreat was announced, you bet, I signed up! This year it was an opportunity to see the private collection of Sandy Sutton. (Sorry, but I’m not able to share any photos of the Sutton collection. Those are Sandy’s to share if she chooses.) However, everyone brings a “show...