The Cottage Orné Quilt

The Cottage Orné Quilt
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Friday 1 April 2011

Later thoughts on Red and White

Well the great adventure is over and I am collecting my thoughts on my visit to New York and the Red and White Quilt exhibit. It was amazing and really did look like the computer generated picture which first attracted my attention and inspired the trip.

The scale of it was awesome and it was interesting to hear the talk by the exhibition designers describing the process from the first idea to the actual installation,  which only took 48 hours.  That in itself is almost unbelievable but we were shown a 300 percent speeded up film of it which seemed flawless.  Of course an enormous amount of preparation had been done prior to the installation, such as matching quilt sizes, because every quilt was back to back with another.


Mrs Rose, the owner of the quilts, was present at the talk and when asked about her reasons for collecting quilts said that she did not consider herself a collector, but an accumulator of quilts and she didn't know anything about the individual quilts.

An accumulator?  Why would one want to be just that?  I really can't figure that one out?  Nevertheless one has to be grateful that this unique event came about because she was an accumulator and wanted to see all her quilts displayed in one place and allowed us to see them too, for free!  What a way to celebrate being 80.  I shall have to start refining my accumulation pronto!

This was a quilt spectacular not a quilt show and must be a first of its kind?  Maybe it will start a trend, but perhaps not, because it was a birthday present to Mrs.Rose from her family and must have been an enormously expensive one.  No-one dared question the designer on that point, but I would love to know!

Thank you Pauline for taking these pictures and for allowing me to use them.  I didn't bring my camera because I assumed that taking pictures wouldn't be allowed!  Actually I hate taking pictures at quilt shows and only do it if something really interests me.  I prefer just to wander and absorb and boy could you absorb at this show!

5 comments:

Chris said...

Spectacular! Being there must have been breathtaking. I am making the most of the free app which is excellent
Chris x

Bertie said...

Incredible, accumulating quilts?? sounds a bit like a wonderful obsession to me :)) a very nice family she must have to gift Mrs Rose this show for her birthday!! what more does a girl want:))

Radka said...

Mary, you lucky lady:))

Vivienne at Vivebooks said...

This sounds amazing - what an experience. I have linked on Facebook Mary . . .

Mel C said...

Wow! gorgeous...