Another Visit to the Amish Quilts

The Amish Quilts from the Stephen and Faith Brown Collection will be leaving the DeYoung on June 6. TFQ bought the exhibit catalog and, before even looking at the whole thing, slammed the book shut and made plane reservations to come down. I am glad she came down the weekend of the 15th, because I have been sick as a dog the past few days and if she had come this past weekend, I would have been no fun.

I love looking at exhibits with TFQ. It is fun seeing an exhibit through someone else’s eyes and pooling our knowledge about pattern and design. I also love looking at exhibits a second time. I always see things I didn’t see before. Sometimes TFQ and I see completely different things in a quilt.

DWR Flower
DWR Flower

One thing I saw that made my day was a small double wedding ring. It was made with the same color of fabric at each end of the arc. This technique made the piece look like there were flowers all over it. The quilt is in the book (plate 38, pg.88), but the “flowers” don’t glow like they did in the real piece.

Roman Stripe Variation
Roman Stripe Variation

I am not sure why I didn’t notice the little Roman Stripe Variation (plate 73, pg.123) in the corner of the exhibit the first time I went, but I didn’t. I really like the way the stripes almost match up, but not quite. This would be a great and not-too-difficult quilt to make. However, where we think of the non-matching stripes as charming, anyone making this quilt today would just be considered a poor piecer.

Sketching the Amish
Sketching the Amish

There was a contained crazy (plate 13, pg.620 that had some really nice embroidery stitches. That little bow stitch in the drawing above was in each block.  Those arcs were some quilting designs that I also liked.

One unexpected joy was that the exhibit catalog was $10 off. I lashed out and bought it along with a book of postcards of Amish quilts in general. When looking at the book I am struck by how the quilts look the same, but do not have the glow that do in person.

After leaving the exhibit, we went up to the Tower. From the outside it just looks strange, but the view, even on a foggy day, is fabulous and I love going up there. On the way up, we saw a sculpture star in the elevator lobby

Wire Star Sculpture
Wire Star Sculpture

The lobby had a number of these wire sculptures and I think they were designed with the shadows in mind. This one would be a wonderful Christmas decoration, if an expensive one.

Window Screen
Window Screen

I liked the way the ferns looked through this window screen. It is made of metal and soldered to the window frame. I think they put it there so people in the garden wouldn’t stare inside. TFQ pointed out that they didn’t really think about cleaning the window when the design was being discussed and implemented.

Author: Jaye

Quiltmaker who enjoys writing and frozen chocolate covered bananas.

2 thoughts on “Another Visit to the Amish Quilts”

  1. Which makes it sound as though I really care about clean windows – ha! Couldn’t help noticing it, though, when I was standing nose up to the smudged glass on the inside of the window!

Comments are closed.