Museum Quilts

Today I attended a Quilters Teas and Turning at the Birmingham Historical Museum, ( http://www.bhamgov.org/museum )

The Museum is located at 556 W Maple, Birmingham MI

The event Kicked of with a banquet style tea, Followed by a Knock-Out Power Point Presentation by Beth Donaldson, Quilt historian from Michigan State University.  I was so pleased to finally get a chance to meet Beth! (we are both MSU people and quilters but met for the first time today)

Beth is on the left with the flowers.

After Beth’s presentation we got a look at some of the Museum’s quilt collection (click pictures to enlarge)

This one is all silk, 1″ english paper pieced hexagons  with a very pretty petal border. (each petal in the border is bound with a coordinating fabric.

This Carolina Lily was once green and red, the green has faded to tan over the last 120 years.  The quilting was beautiful.

This silk crazy quilt is unbacked and unbound, and looks as crisp as the day it was made.  We can guess the date pretty close by looking at the center block.

Perfect in attendance 1902-1903….someone was proud!

This beauty was done using a huge assortment of 1/2 square triangles set in the barn raising pattern.  The quilting is simple “in the ditch” quilting but the standout is the fabric….days could be spent looking at them all.

We were all invited to bring some of our own antique quilts for feedback.  Here are a few (sorry I can’t list the owners names…as usual I forgot to bring paper and pen!)

The event ended with a give away…one lucky person won this quilt, made by Museum Volunteers.

An afternoon learning about quilts, and talking about quilts, and meeting fellow quilters.  That’s hard to beat!

Happy Quilting

Tim