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...

  Although initially our focus was drawn to the amazing quilts in the gallery, the other textiles displayed couldn’t be ignored, especially with an indigo resist taking up a large part of the display. This amazing linen textile was made in Berks County, Pennsylvania approximately 1780 – 1830. Hanging beside the indigo resist was dress fabric from the Coromandal Coast, 1775-1800. The design was created by hand instead of being block printed. The fabric bears the mark on the back of United East India Company. Additional fabrics, including one printed by Bromley Hall in this Banyan held my attention. Needlework on display was also an important contribution to the collections. Both men and women were employed in professional workshops creating amazing clothing and furnishings. A sample of whitework from New York was also included. All of...

Our first glimpse of the fun about to come was before breakfast, where Kay noticed a local newspaper called "The Fishwrapper", a salute to history even in the title. Think back, or if you don't have first hand knowledge, research what items would have been sold at an old dry goods store. That is the focus of the Penn Dry Goods Market held annually at the Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center. The market itself is a glimpse of treasures brought by various vendors selling their wares of quilts, books, buttons, and bows. Vendors are required to have a majority of their wares in the textile category. Besides the antique vendor show, there are two days of special lectures on textiles as well as the history of textiles. This year I was honored to present the trunk...

This exhibition is a combination of quilts made by or collected by Mary Schafer a quilter that helped keep quilt studies alive between WWII and the revival of quilting in the 1970’s. During her lifetime, she was involved in many aspects of the quilt world including: collecting, designing, quilting and preserving quilting traditions. Her legacy is found in some of today’s quilters, such as Joe Cunningham and Gwen Marston who wrote the book, "Mary Schafer and her Quilts." Gwen Marston also wrote “Mary Schafer, American Quilt Maker.” She was honored by the Quilters’ Hall of Fame in 2007, shortly after her death. Two quilt names by Mary caught my eye because of the stories associated with the block. First, Lafayette Orange Peel, which was derived from the myth of Lafayette slicing an orange into 4 parts...