Appalachia's regional art, culture, music and crafts have not only survived generations of population explosion and migration. Its heritage crafts are today still passed on to younger generations and are celebrated and evident just about anywhere one looks.
Especially quilts. How many of you have ever attended a quilting bee? Or watched an aunt or grandmother create a quilt? I never had that luxury in my youth, so perhaps that's why in my old age I've become such a quilt-appreciator.
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Contemporary Quilts, found in museum shops, art guilds, craft fairs -- bold, geometric, and colorful with defined designs; many are machine-quilted in a wide variety of designs.
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Heirloom Quilts,
Museum of Appalachia, Tennessee
Remember that these were sewn, embroidered and quilted ENTIRELY by hand. In the enlargements, note the tiny, tiny, exquisitely, perfectly identical stitches.
The Quilters of Gee's Bend, Alabama, deserve their very own blog page. I'll get to it eventually!
Joan Taylor, no slouch herself with a needle, just left this link in "Comments":
I had some difficulty opening the page and just noticed, for some reason, when I copied it "http://" appears twice. Just delete one of them and try again.
2 comments:
I so admire the patience, creativity, and skill that hand quilters especially demonstrate; there's a story in every inch!
This website offers good information on the history of quilts and quilting:
http://www.womenfolk.com/historyofquilts/
I lived with my grandmother off and on throughout my childhood. She made "crazy" quilts, completely by hand; not for their beauty but for it's utility: rescueing scaps of used garments to keep us warm in the winter time. She did not have a loom, as most quilters have. All her work was painstakingly done on her lap.
They don't make women like that anymore.
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