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Back to that trip to the national quilt museum that I started diarying about back in
February.
The primary purpose was to view the exhibit of Judy Martin quilts. Sadly, the museum does not allow pictures. So I’ll do the best I can with links.
In addition to the Judy Martin quilts, the museum had two other exhibits at the time of my visit: Moda’s School Block Challenge and Quilts of the South Central US. Moda’s School Block Challenge made clear that we need more art in schools: it’s not a waste of time, it develops many things including fine motor skills. I really enjoyed the South Central quilts as so many were more traditional in design. This quilt, with the central mariner’s compass medallion and Blackford Beauty blocks on point was especially gorgeous.
So…about those Judy Martin quilts. The quilts were mainly drawn from Patchwork Among Friends, Stellar Quilts, and Scraps.
What was really surprising about the exhibit was that quilts look so different from 20, 30 feet away and hanging on a wall vice as a picture in a book. It made me rethink which quilts were my favorites. For example, Fanfare for Heroes. This really didn’t do anything for me in the book. But on the wall, from a distance, you really see how the light and dark areas played against each other and it was a much more dramatic quilt. This was also true of any quilt that had shadow blocks; the shadowing was much more dramatic and effective from a distance. Ring of Fire was another surprise favorite.
For more examples of quilts from these books, here are photos that quilters sent to Judy of quilts they made from her patterns.