The National Quilt Museum, Paducah, Kentucky

(This blog entry is dedicated to my friend Marjorie Cunningham, the best quilter I know.)

One of the joys of returning to Arizona from the East Coast is you GAIN THREE HOURS since Arizonians do not believe in Daylight Savings Time.  While the rest of the country struggles twice a year to change cyclical body rhythms, Arizonians just laugh.  

It seemed to take forever to get out of the Eastern Daylight Savings Time Zone so I could suck up those free hours, but once we hit Western Kentucky, suddenly there one was.  It took me about five minutes to find The National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky, to wile away my free hour.  Drake, laughing, said, "You didn't waste any time spending that hour, did you?  As always, he was a good sport and drove me right to the museum.

This sculpture right outside the museum was rather baffling.  Here's the sign which 'explains' it.

The museum holds between 600 and 700 quilts.  They acquire award winners, think "Best in Show" from the National Quilt Show held in Kentucky each year.  They also acquire other quilts from 'sister' country quilters - usually Japan, where quilting is an art form.  Additionally, the 'Best in Show' at any major quilt show around the country can wind up in the museum.  Most quilters are thrilled and flattered to be asked for their quilts, and wind up either donating them, or allowing them to be hung for an amount of time.  The museum also purchases antique quilts from various sources.  One special  exhibit when we visited included quilts from the 1920's and 1930's.

Artists' quilts are about as far from your grandmother's 'pieced' quilt tops as you can get.  The fabrics and techniques are choices made by true artists.  In that vein,

I thought the above quilt currently hanging in the museum is the most unusual one I've ever seen, and I swear I've seen a real Tiffany wisteria window which was the model and inspiration for the quilt pictured below.

Perhaps, you prefer a more fantastical approach to your quilt.  This should be your cup of tea:

If you can't figure this out, you're looking at a quilt narrating the book, The Hobbit.  The dragon, Smaug, is sitting on his gold in the upper right hand corner.  

Here's Drake's favorite.  It's a quilting artist's rendition of an astronomical event:  The collision of two stars.

Birds were also liberally represented.  Here's my favorite 'bird' quilt:

I could continue to post quilt after quilt each of which is boggling in the colors, the textures, the subject matter, and even the size.  There's an entire nook of 'miniature' quilts.

The traditional quilt is not neglected.  One special exhibition consisted of the quilts based on the Kansas City Star newspaper patterns.  In 1928, in order to encourage women to read the Kansas City Star newspaper, the paper began publishing a quilt pattern in the newspaper.  It was free to anyone who bought a paper.   

Pineapple pattern from 1932

The museum has collected examples of the quilts created based on the free quilt patterns.  The 'sheet' shows what was published in the newspaper. 

Here's one of my favorites a 1929 airplane pattern - three years after 'Lucky Lindy' flew his plane across the Atlantic Ocean from New Jersey to Paris.

The 1929 Airplane Quilt

Another exhibition was simply entitled 'Color'.  You can see why from a close up picture of one of the examples.

Another fascinating aspect of this museum were the stories of the quilters explaining their inspirations and artistic processes.

Here's the explanation of the above quilt:

This museum is proof I never know when I'm going to encounter art.  If you want to see the rest of these amazing quilts, click the link:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/sdWRsG1UToC5eCXs5