We took a quick vacation to Williamsburg Virginia. They have a nice decorative arts museum there that has a few quilts. Of course I had to get some pictures.
First up is this beautiful whole cloth quilt from the 1830s to 1850s.
The quilting on that is just stunning.
Here’s an even older one.
This one is backlit so you can see all the designs.
Next up was a hexagon quilt.
That looks just about like any other hexagon quilt, right?
Now, look at my finger in there for perspective.
I obviously wasn’t right up on it but those hexagons are maybe 1/2 an inch if not a bit smaller.
This one wasn’t in the main quilt gallery. Is it me or is this one hung sideways?
There were some other quilts in the collection that were nice but were obviously more aimed at teaching people what some basic quilt patterns like album and signature quilts were more than impressing quilters. There was one Gee’s Bend quilt. I’m sure I’m going to get my quilter’s card revoked for this but I’ve never really seen the appeal of those quilts. *Ducking and covering*
The museum was full of all kinds of other stuff too and we spent most of our day in Colonial Williamsburg there. There were toys and signs and instruments and furniture and paintings and clothes and weapons and everything else you could think of.
These are lovely. What a fun exhibit! The hex quilt is astonishing. I don’t know much about quilting specifically, but I do know just enough about sewing to understand how much effort and planning it had to take to get that level of detail and precision, especially by hand. I also really appreciate the way they’ve displayed that one whitework piece with backlighting so you can see all the details — smart.