At The Quilt Museum

Had a wonderful day in York on Friday, most of the time at The Quilt Museum http://www.quiltmuseum.org.uk/  where there is an impressive retrospective of Pauline Burbidge’s quilt work http://www.paulineburbidge-quilts.com/. ‘Interpretations in Cloth’ shows the artist’s seminal quilts and some helpful elements of the design stages in the airy, light infused setting of St Anthony’s Hall. There are just enough quilts to trace Burbidge’s artistic journey with cloth, paint and stitches and, wonderfully, you can get close up views of her signature combination of hand and machine quilting. My favourites were the landscapes  -shades of black and white and subtle use of stiches combined to give a 3D effect close up and from afar.

There is also a small but inspiring exhibition of the whole cloth quilt work of Amy Emms http://www.quiltershalloffame.net/index_files/Page904.html  with whole cloth quilts, a wedding dress stitched beautifully by this lifelong quilter.

There’s a great little museum shop and yes, Sue and I both added to our collections of fabric and books.We then found a small but well stocked knitting shop with more temptations before a meal and the train home.

The Quilt Museum needs your support, its present exhibitions are well worth a visit  .. do go.  I’m now looking for a workshop where I can play with fabric and paint and stitches and learn to develop my quilting in the direction of making some more fluid, less design by numbers small pieces.