Thursday, September 16, 2010

Broderie Perse at the New England Quilt Museum

On September 11, several of us met at Lowell's New England Quilt Museum and toured their "Broderie Perse" exhibit. According to womenfolk.com, broderie perse means "Persian embroidery" in French but it also has come to refer to applique of printed chintz flowers and other motifs onto solid fabric. This art has been around since the 1700's.

Here is one of the quilts we admired in person: Image courtesy of www.nequiltmuseum.org

A quick google image search unveiled a more contemporary usage of the technique:



Image courtesy of theappliquesociety.org

The quilts on display were impressive in their precision, use of color, and design. We were also privileged to admire some other type of quilts representative of some of the museum's permanent collection.

We hope more can join us in October as we meet at the Arlington Public Library to learn more about handwork in quilting.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

World Quilt Show - New England

Several NEMQG members were able to attend the World Quilt Show in Manchester, NH on August 20. The show did not disappoint. Quilts on display came from Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdon, and the United States.

The quilts on display were simply stunning, in this post I will let the images speak for themselves with a few notes here and there.

The small blocks here were actually miniature pieced log cabins.
The same artist as above also completed this stunning orange masterpiece.


I was intrigued by this quilt made with genuine South African textiles (ironically purchased in a MA shop).

The artist explained that the "birth of stars" was her inspiration for this quilt.


The use of neutrals here was very clever.


This was one of my favorites, made by a woman in England out of "polyester silk" (oxymoron?).



An American woman did improvisational piecing here:



This quilt is a draw-dropping masterpiece when you take a closer look.......




All of those pieces are tiny little squares pieced together!



This quilt, "Fire and Ice," received 1st place in the competition.


There are over 55,000 Swarvoski crystals heat bonded to the entire quilt.



This quilt was the grand champion, made by a woman in Kentucky.



Attending this show was very worthwhile. I encourage to make plans to attend next year.
You never know what you might see.....


(Just in case you need help deciphering this - it's actually a cat doing yoga surrounded by donuts).