Three Days: Three Lectures

An early four-post bed quilt, part of my "Discovering Old Quilts" lecture

When it rains, it pours...but I'm not talking about the weather. It's a perfectly sunny day in Portland, and Day Two of my crazy "three-lectures-in-three-days" schedule. Last night, I spoke to the Mary's River Quilter's Guild at the Benton County Museum in Philomath, Oregon - the site of my "Beauty Secrets" exhibit. It was a full house in the Moreland Auditorium, and several familiar faces including my mother, who is visiting from Maine. It was the first time Mom had ever heard me lecture. I also got to meet Debra Kerns of Lafayette, Indiana, who was in Oregon visiting. Kerns is the maker of the "Oriental Express" quilt in the exhibit, and it was great to meet her in person!

The Moreland Auditorium was the location of last night's lecture.

After a lovely introduction from the Mary's River Quilt Guild programs coordinator, Monique Lloyd, I opened with, "Don't you just love how I decorated this space?" and we were off and running. The lecture began with four items that didn't quite make it into the exhibit, including a rescue quilt - the one with two large chunks missing. As expected, there was a collective audible gasp from the audience when the damaged quilt was revealed.

I also showed a woven coverlet in the New York Beauty design, a large Depression era quilt, and a modern day example that was made with a Karen Stone pattern. The program started around 8pm, so I thought it would be a good idea to keep things interactive. So after some talk about how the collection and exhibit came to be, I asked audience members to pick a favorite quilt in the exhibit, and I would speak about it. We did several quilts this way, I took some more questions at the end, and I was very impressed by the types of questions being asked. I was also very impressed with the guild and hope to visit them again in the future.

Twenty quilts from my collection are on display at Expo through Saturday

That was Day One. Today and tomorrow I'm lecturing at the Northwest Quilting Expo, a large quilt show with many vendors at the Portland Metropolitan Exposition Center. The topic for both days is "Discovering Old Quilts" and it's being run as a class with sign-ups done in advance. There is also a display of 20 antique quilts from my collection, representing the period from 1810 to 1910.

"Discovering Old Quilts" - Victorian silk "Bars" 

I have no idea how many people will be there for my class/lectures, but I've planned to show a wonderful group of quilts representing 100 years of history from 1830 to 1930. One of these quilts is a huge "Robbing Peter to Pay Paul" or "Lemon Peel" quilt, made around 1830 in New England (pictured at top). It just arrived on my doorstep yesterday, so I'm excited to share it! Some of the quilts in the lecture and exhibit will soon be available for sale. In October I'm planning to launch a web site called "Willy Wonky Quilts" where I will sell and consign quilts. Stay tuned...