Arizona’s Centennial was February 14th of this year, and the Arizona Historical Society is celebrating with a fantastic installation; “100 Quilts–100 Years” as part of the Arizona Centennial Quilt Project.
Andrea Stanfield’s quilt, above, is called “Arizona’s Flag 2012” and is made of 2000 postage-stamp sized squares of fabric: it’s a great example of smart use of color, and is really stunning. I would’ve gotten a better photo but the museum was packed with people yesterday for the opening of the show.
Below is my piece which I made in 2006. After Libby Lehman saw it and observed that my piece appeared “ambitious”, I spent almost the entire following year removing the quilting stitches, and then I straightened it to the best of my ability and re-quilted it: I learned a painful lesson with this piece, and that is to NEVER combine raw silk, charmeuse silk, cotton and canvas in a quilt unless I am convinced I can densely machine quilt it to lay straight. Because silk loves to do nothing more than to drape… and while it’s usually an elegant drape, it’s still wavy:
The installation at the Arizona Historical Society Museum is very professional; clearly, they have experts in museum collections curating their shows. I really appreciate the thoughtful time and effort to make this show look fabulous.
Below is a group quilt made by the ladies in my art quilting group, known as the Sharp Women. I am very new to the group, having joined just a year ago; this is a row quilt they made several years ago. It looks fantastic:
Every quilt gets a placard next to it with the title, name of the quilter and a statement; sadly, you can’t read the text for the Sharp Women’s group quilt here, but at least you get the idea:
I encourage everyone to check museum hours for the Arizona Historical Society and view the show; there’s a great book of the exhibit which you can purchase as well! And there’s free parking.
Congratulations!
Hi Clare;
My late mother in law would have loved this show as she loved to Quilt and she was good at it also.. In her later years she made them for all her kids and also for her grandchildren. Her husband would cut the pieces of cloth for her and she would make the quilts It was a labor of love .
Denis
Yes, I be she would’ve loved the show, just as she would’ve appreciated how quiltmaking has evolved: women are now allowed so much creative expression, and there are so many great fabrics and such great technology to make quiltmaking easier.
So good to hear from you! Hope you’re well.