Bowers Museum Trip

I went to the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA yesterday with 3 friends. They had a quilt exhibit called "Quilts. Two Centuries of American Tradition & Technique", that we wanted to check out.

It wasn't a very big display but it was well done. All the quilts were antique.

This was a lace throw that had some very pretty embroidery on it. I couldn't get very close to it or I would have taken a better picture. I also couldn't use a flash so the pictures are a little dark. The lace was also beautiful and ornate.

They had one traditional Crazy Quilt but I didn't think it was a very good example of workmanship. The stitching was very mediocre. With all the amazing CQ's out there you would have thought they would have chosen better.

There were 2 other quilts that were in the tradition of Crazy Quilts, in that they had stitching on them like this pineapple foundation pieced quilt.

The quilt that was the most striking to me was this quilt. I don't know what the pattern is called but it was pieced like a hexagon quilt with paper templates. It was unfinished but I think that adds to how fantastic it was. You could see how it was being made. This was worth the trip to see!

It had some fantastic stitching on it. It really showcased the stitching because the fabrics were mostly solid. We can learn from this in our own CQ's by keeping the fabrics less busy. Even though you wouldn't know it from my 2012 CQ! LOL!

The paper templates were interesting, too, because they were snippets of the times with printing on them.

We checked out the whole museum. They had many fascinating displays. One of which was titled "Weird and Wonderful". I thought this was interesting because for the last 30 some years, my day job is as a Dental Technician. I can relate to this lady making things that had nothing to do with dentistry, using dental tools.

She made this skeleton out of ceramic materials. Very complex and detailed. It was only about 10 inches long. Wow!

They had these Chinese Corbels that were awe inspiring!

So intricately carved from wood.

This is the Fair Damsel, Jeanne Bird. She is so fun!

If you live in the Southern California area, I think the museum is worth the trip. The quilt display runs through January 16th so there is plenty of time.