June 4, 2021: Quilt Museum pictures, Part 3; Earthly Delights; Books

Greetings dear readers! Today I continue to share more quilts from the NEQM visit – the rest of my pictures from the Pilgrim/Roy exhibit and a couple more of Wendy Reed’s quilts. Then I’ll have one final, Part 4, in which I’ll show the last of my pictures from Wendy’s exhibit and some of the modern quilts that were up in a separate gallery. This past weekend 2 new exhibits were hung, one being, Quilts Nihon featuring Japanese quilts so I am very eager to get back to see this one and eventually share those on the blog!!! Unfortunately I missed getting pictures of some of the information cards in the P/R exhibit so I don’t have information on some of these, but be aware that they are antiques and without attribution anyway. First, 2 more from Wendy. I love her use of this great border print and the hexagons are wonderfully fussy cut:

Wendy’s stash is out of this world and she used it well in this next one! Great quilting too!

From the Pilgrim/Roy collection, focusing on use of the color cheddar:

I really, really like the on-point setting for this sampler quilt:

I have a special fondness for Princess Feather designs. This was a beautiful top!:

I also want to share an old top that was on sale at the museum shop. I did not want to spend the money to buy it, but I would put this on my “want to reproduce some day” list! 🙂 The appliqué is a unique interpretation of the Christmas cactus block, I think, and doesn’t look difficult!

Earthy Delights: I almost missed seeing this Lady Slipper down by the river the other day – just happened to look down and there it was. They aren’t seen that often so a “sighting” is special:

I took a few minutes to look for more, but only found one that had been broken by a branch falling on it:

I have 4 different lovely walks that I can take right from the house and I rotate those, but there are many trails that I can drive to in a short time so I like to mix those in for variety. One of those recently yielded this picture of a mighty oak in the forest that looks like it might have been burned at one point – a lightening strike?

The bog is a place I can walk to (no driving) and looked lush after 3 days of rain recently:

I love the pattern of the roots on the path near the bog. I have to watch where I’m going so that I don’t stumble and fall!!!:

Down by the pond there was one lovely Japanese Iris at water’s edge:

And I am still having fun hunting for frogs!! Can you find both frogs in this picture? They love to hide at the edge of the water and sometimes leap out into the pond when I pass by, but many just stay still, allowing me to photograph them:

A Japanese Iris from my own yard:

I recently finished 2 books that I can highly recommend.

Both books are beautifully written. Both are set in rural, pastoral, farming landscapes; Hannah Coulter takes place in rural Kentucky, in the mid 20th century (mostly), and My Antonia takes place in the Nebraska prairie of the late 19th century. Both, but especially the latter, made me reminisce about my own childhood on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania in the 1950’s and early 60’s. The freedom to explore and roam through pastures and woods without needing supervision is so different from what most children experience now. Also the farm work that was required of them! I love Willa Cather’s writing and am thinking about re-reading “Death Comes For The Archbishop” and “Song of the Lark” each read and loved many, many years ago. I also want to explore more Wendell Berry.

I’m also indulging in some of “The Great Courses” because my local library carries many of them. These are multi lecture, often college level courses on a wide range of topics on sets of DVD’s. Lectures are often a half hour and the number of lectures varies from course to course. I like to hand quilt while I’m watching and listening. I watched all 48 lectures on the History of European Art, which was fabulous! Now Al and I are watching this one together and absolutely loving it!

There are 48 lectures and we don’t even get to the rise of Homo sapiens until lecture 18! So much fascinating information on the Big Bang, the formation of the stars and galaxies, the solar system and our planet, the early geology of our planet, the first life, single cellular organisms, followed by multicellular organisms, etc. A fabulous overview/perspective on “big” history, indeed. I was a natural sciences major in college so I love this stuff!😊

Oh – I should show at least one picture of a quilt I’m working on. 🙂 Here’s the status of the latest donation quilt I’m making – 16 blocks made, 4 to go:

Be kind, be grateful, and cherish each day, Gladi