International Quilt Study Center - Day 7

We are in Lincoln Nebraska today and we spent the morning at the International Quilt Study Center, at the University of Nebraska, a place I have wanted to visit since I first heard about it.

 

This beautiful building houses not only a collection of incredible antique quilts, but a state-of-the-art facility for research, the study and conservation of quilts. We saw several exhibits and I took photos of some of my favorite pieces that we saw today.

This '30s appliqué quilt depicting lotus blossoms was so typical of that era's colors and techniques, but I thought the design quite a bit more sophisticated than most.

 

Another '30s quilt. The fan pattern is a really unusual variation on a common theme and the docent pointed out that the fans, while they look identical, vary quite a lot.

Oh, how I love red paisley!

 

This may be the craziest crazy quilt I've ever seen.

 

Beautiful stitching on a Baltimore album quilt.

 

An exhibit called "Covering the War" made me think about my friend, KristIn LaFlamme's military themed quilts. I think this one is so interesting in the placement of the stars. The info card tells the story.

 

 

And what a wonderful surprise to find the Boise Peace quilt in the collection. In the '80s the Boise Peace Quilters created several quilts promoting world peace and opposing nuclear proliferation. This quilt was circulated among members of the U.S. Senate with an invitation to sleep under it in the hope that it would inspire dreams of world peace that they would carry into their work. 55 senators, including John Glenn and Strom Thurmond accepted the invitation embroidered on the quilt to ''rest beneath the warmth and weight of our hopes for the future of our children.'' The names of all the Senators who slept under the quilt are embroidered in the sashing between the blocks.

What a beautiful place this Center is, where the work of so many hands is celebrated and preserved and so beautifully exhibited. What we saw today is a very small part of their collection, but an expansion is underway that will create more gallery space.

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Thanks for all the comments. Blogging is my way of journaling our travels and using my photos. So it's really more for me than for you, but I enjoy sharing them. So far I am keeping my photos pretty well organized, which is one of my goals here. I take a lot and if I don't edit and label them right away I lose track of what was taken where. Remember the old days when you brought back rolls and rolls of film from a trip and then, when you finally developed it, you couldn't remember taking some of them? I love being able to relax at the end of each travel day, transfer photos from camera to iPad and delete the stinkers and label and file what I want to keep. Then I pick a few favorites to include in a blog post.

Tomorrow we move on to Iowa. Do you think it will be as windy as Nebraska? I am beginning to understand why pioneer women went mad in their sod houses out on the plains with the incessant wind whistling down the chimney...

 

 

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