A Trip to the Current Quilt Exhibit at the Folk Art Museum in NYC

April 11, 2011

The current quilt exhibit at the Folk Art Museum in New York City, “Quilts: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum, ” features quilts made as early as the 1800s. The oldest quilt I happened to see was dated 1825. The exhibit is being split into two different installation dates end ends in October of this year. There may actually be older quilts displayed in the second installation. I happened to view the first of the two.

The quilts were fascinating and, although I am not a quilter, I recognized many of the styles: show quilts, crazy quilts, log cabin designs, wedding ring, flying geese. A couple of others I did not recognize though: pickle dish? signature? Nonetheless, they were all beautifully crafted. One of the quilts, that originated in North Carolina used a wedding dress as the main fabric – beautiful fabric with a beautiful story!

Of the quilts pictured here, the Freedom quilt on the top left held an interesting story – the design was inspired when the quilter was fired from her job in the 1960s after attempting to register to vote. I love the repetition and the message.

The middle top quilt uses a different type of stitch for every piece of fabric sewn into the quilt. The photo inset shows a little more detail of a few stitches.

The quilt on the top right is one of the more contemporary designs that was displayed. This particular quilter dyes all of her own fabrics. What a process!

The bottom three quilts? I just liked them and thought they were worthy of being included!

Have you been to an interesting quilt exhibit recently? Let us know about it! We love quilting at Springs Creative!

Want more information about the Folk Art Museum’s exhibit? Click here.

These quilts are wonderful examples, of course, of using scraps of material. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rethink, right?

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