Quilts 1700 to 2010 - The Book!

Well, the gang is all back from the trip to England, and our lovely boss brought home  fabric trip treats, woo hoo!   Lots of comments on the exhibit at the V&A, and some lovely books made the trip back "across the pond" with them.  I was able to bring home the Quilts 1700 to 2010 - Hidden Histories, Untold Stories (by Sue Prichard) for a long weekend. Fortunately, or unfortunately, this coincided with my rotary cutter finger shearing, so it was a perfect few days to sit and read. (I was careful not to bleed on the book, relax.)

The book is a beauty, filled with wonderful histories and lots of background on the quilts and quiltmakers.   I saw details in the quilts that astonished me, inspired me, and gave me a few ideas of my own.

For some reason, about halfway through the book, the contemporary quilts and quilters were explored. It was like hitting a concrete wall - the flow, the timeline, the whole experience was interrupted, and not pleasantly.  I am a new-born fan of contemporary quilts, but these were, um, how can I be nice about this - unique. Okay, yeah, unique and unusual. Yeah, that. Unusual. That is all I can say in a family publication.

When I returned the book to my boss,  I told her if it was my book I would have taken an X-Acto  knife and carved out those middle pages.  (The quilts all reappear at the end of the book, so no worries.)   She looked at my mangled finger and gave me a look that said, "Hey- no sharp instruments for a while, m'kay?"   I'm going to buy the book - it's a definite keeper. Nice to have the chance to spend so much time with it before purchase, tho.  Sometimes being the stay-at-home Cinderella has a few advantages.