Yvonne Porcella quilt exhibit

I so lucked out! I saw in The Quilt Show newsletter that Yvonne Porcella was having a quilt exhibit on Stanford campus right when I was heading to California to visit my daughter, just a few minutes from campus. Yay! I love her style. This is one of the first ones I saw, and there are so many things I like about it -- the piecing, the applique, the quilting, the use of color, the binding.

The lighting was not great for photos, but I wanted to show this flower basket quilt...

...because I love how she interspersed broderie perse with her own flowers, as you can see in this closeup.

I really like the one below. Yvonne Porcella's quilts are free and fun, but not chaotic. I love her mix of black and white with brights, and it seems to me it's not overdone.

Here's a closeup to show her amazing quilting -- really enhances the design.

Another fun one, with people and chili pepper appliques (again, lighting is not so great, and I had to use the camera on my phone since I dropped my other camera):

And I think you can see the quilting in the closeup, especially if you click to enlarge the photo. This is much more lightly quilted, and I love how the lines work -- they don't follow the checkerboard or stripes, but are a design of their own that fits the quilt. Never would have thought of this, but it looks terrific.

This is a closeup of Purple Dog Green Hair -- awesome!!

You can see the full quilt hanging here (with another of her quilts, Moo 2000). I love how these quilts were displayed -- a few quilts along a wall, in several hallways, on a few floors, of 3 neighboring buildings on campus. There were also two other artists, working in different media, whose works were displayed with hers. Wouldn't it be awesome to sit in this lounge to study and look up from time to time to see the quilts?

You can see more of Yvonne Porcella's work here.

The other New York City quilt show

 I was in NYC in March to visit my daughter and my inlaws, but our flight home was the day before the big red and white quilt exhibit opened. Aargh! Fortunately, it's The Year of the Quilt at the American Folk Museum (right next door to the Museum of Modern Art), and I took in quite a show there. And they allowed photos! No flash, of course, so some of mine are a bit blurry, but when I was there for a Paula Nadelstern exhibit a couple years ago, they didn't allow any photos at all. Here are a few of my favorites.

 This double wedding ring quilt was made in the 1930s by an unknown quilter (guess that's why we should label our quilts). I loved her use of color.

 I thought this quilt was amazing -- it has an incredible look from a distance...

 ...and up close you can see the tremendous amount of work that went into it! Unfortunately, the photo I took that gave info about the quilt is too blurry to read.

 Low lighting means I also can't read the info on this quilt. It has a very elegant look to it, but the close-up below also shows how wonderfully scrappy and homey it is.

Below is Jessie Telfair's famous Freedom quilt. It really packs a whollop when you see it in person. I was really moved by it.

 Take a look at the close-up to see how it was constructed.

 This is a late 19th century crazy quilt map of the US -- what's not to love? The piecing in the background is pretty amazing, too.  My photo is a little blurry, but there's a better picture of it on the museum website, click here.

 After seeing the exhibit, I stopped by the City Quilter. They had just expanded into the space next door, and they're going to turn part of it into an art quilt gallery. As I looked around, I saw one of Karen Eckmeier's Happy Villages quilts -- this one of NYC, quite a village! It was a great find for me, since I was taking a class from her at my guild the day after I returned home. More on that in another post. I really like her Happy Villages quilts.

And finally, walking to meet my daughter later that day, I went by the most amazing shop filled with old, old, old (even treadle!) sewing machines. Wow! It's a boutique clothing store called All Staints.

And just last week The Quilt Show website had a video of the interior of this store, which they also discovered when in NYC for the big Red and White quilt exhibit. Take a look here.