National Quilt Museum and More Quilts

Good morning, my friends. We spent our last day in Paducah visiting the National Quilt Museum. We’d driven by it the day before, but entering through the front door, it was bigger than I thought. And before I go on, I want to say that being here in Paducah during “Quilt Week” has been quite an experience. The crowds were bad at the quilt show, but there was something special about being with so many quilters from so many different locations. The museum was similar, and the crowd was much less bothersome.

Here’s how it looks approaching the museum.

Above the front door…yes, “honor” us. Kind of gives you the warm fuzzies, doesn’t it?

And I took lots more pictures of quilts here. We still have a couple of days of quilt show quilts to get through. So, for now, I’ll just tell you a little bit about the museum. I’ll tell you about our day, and then I’ll show you some more quilts from the quilt show. Over the next several days, I’ll show you more quilts from the museum, and I’ll also show you some of the murals along Paducah’s Historic Riverfront. How does that sound? Okay, I hope, because that’s how this is gonna go.

So first, the museum seems to have adopted this quilt from Caryl Bryer Faller-Gentry as its “signature” quilt.

I’ve seen this quilt before in a video documentary, and I’ve also seen it associated with the literature and on the website about the quilt museum. It’s lovely in person. And it seems so appropriate that I should see it in person while we’re on our “Eclipse Trip.”

It’s hung so that the back can also be seen. I hadn’t seen this part before. It’s beautiful on both sides.

Also, I was thrilled to stumble into the museum just as Dr. Karen Nyberg was giving a little talk. You might remember her as the astronaut quilter.

I would have loved to get up closer to hear her talk, but the crush of the crowd was too much. Instead, I satisfied myself listening from a distance and looking at one of her other quilts…this one:

If I’m remembering this right, her space shuttle mission happened around 2014. At the time, she issued an Astronomical Quilt Block Challenge. She asked quilters to contribute a 9-inch star block of any kind, sign it, and add our location. Then all those donated blocks were made into 25 quilts that were shown at the Houston Quilt Show some time later. Here’s a picture of Karen at the Houston show.

And I absolutely love being a part of a group project like that. This is the block I submitted.

Eventually, I saw all the quilts posted somewhere, and I was able to find the quilt that contained my block. So exciting. Here it is. Mine is the first block on the left, fourth row from the top.

Okay, and here’s another quilt that captured my heart. I love lemurs. Aren’t they adorable?

It's the work of this artist:

Such beautiful piecing and thread work. Here’s some detail of the tail. Look how it appears three-dimensional.

I have my own lemur quilt I want to make sometime, and so I spent some time studying this quilt. My lemurs were seen at the aquarium in Tampa, Florida.

I haven’t quite worked up the courage to start it yet, but I’m getting there. 

For now, I’ll put the quilts from the museum on hold and show you more in a day or two. In the meantime, I want to tell you about the rest of our day.

First, we managed to snag another free parking space. We're feeling pretty smug about parking for free both days. On the way from the public lot to the museum, I took pictures of every blooming thing. My phone tells me this is Woodland Sage.

My phone tells me this is Virginia Spiderwort.

This is a peony. It was as big as a softball.

Here’s a small yellow rose.

After leaving the museum, it was a quick walk to reach the Historic Riverwalk. Looking across, we saw a tugboat pushing several barges. This is a very common scene in the rivers around here.

From there, we walked east a little way to where the flood wall is located. The whole wall is painted in murals.

And this is something else I’ll show you over the next few days. I couldn’t possibly have taken pictures of all the murals, but I’ll show you my favorites.

As we stood there, this carriage came toward us. See the quilt at the front?

There was one at the back too. And look at how the horses’ tails are braided.

And this was one of the things I loved about being in Paducah for quilt week. When I became a quilter, I felt as if I had joined in something larger than myself…a community, both in the present and as a part of something historical. It made me feel connected to my grandmother, in particular. She’d been gone for around 35 years when I learned to quilt, and yet, I felt a part of her larger “community” of quilters. I think being here in Paducah during this week devoted to the art and craft of quilting put me back in touch with that feeling. There were quilts everywhere, and quilters were acknowledged and welcomed.

Standing looking down the flood wall, you can see that the murals extend all the way to the end. Approximately a third of the wall was behind us and missing from this picture. Mainly, though, I wanted you to see this cobblestone street. This is the historic part of Paducah, and it was very charming.

We ended up walking up this street for several blocks, and then walking back down the other side.

Along the way, we passed this historical marker. When I show you the murals, you’ll see that Paducah experienced catastrophic flooding on more than one occasion. It seems Clara Barton and the American Red Cress were kept busy there.

Indeed, here was a high-water marker. Look at that high-water mark for 1937: nearly 61 feet!

Of course, we take pictures of all cats, no matter what.

See what I’m talking about? As a quilter, I felt special.

We got a chuckle out of this apparently transplanted Portlander. The car had a Kentucky license plate, but this person had a hard time leaving Portland. Just FYI, that license plate frame from Gresham Toyota is from the Portland suburb of Gresham.

We were heading back to the truck as we walked down this street that paralleled the river.

We walked by this alley between some of the old buildings. For some reason, I felt compelled to take its picture. The only other place I’ve seen something like this was in historic Philadelphia.

Well, you didn’t think I could visit the quilt museum without picking up some merch did you? I bought this t-shirt. I’m not much of a destination t-shirt person, but I wanted something from the quilt show. The quilt pictured on the shirt will be among the ones I show you in a few days.

I could have chosen many different quilts pictured on a refrigerator magnet, but I really loved the lemurs. 

And I didn’t expect to find a shot glass there, but I did.

Okay, so I don’t have anything more to tell you about our visit to the quilt museum, but I’ll be showing you some of the quilts and the murals in the coming days. For now, I have a few more quilts from the quilt show for you. Like before, I’ll put the name of the quilter first, followed by the quilt. I’ll only chime in if I have something to add.

I was pleased to see this entry from Oregon. It even won a prize.

And I was pleased to see this one from one of my neighbors to the north in Battle Ground, Washington.

I love the use of color in this next one.

This one gave me some ideas about how to do a Manhattan skyline quilt I’ve wanted to try. 

These next quilts were minis. Here’s another skyline that gave me some ideas.

This is the image I’ve been wanting to do.

Here's another mini. They were behind glass, so I’m sorry about the reflections.

Look at how tiny these pieces are!

The maker of this next quilt posted to one of the Facebook quilting groups that she’d won a ribbon in the show. She was very excited, and her quilt is beautiful.

So that's probably enough pictures for today. I'll show you some more in tomorrow's post. 

This was last night's sunset. We've enjoyed our time at this park. It's been quiet and peaceful.

We have a relatively short drive to Bardstown today...around 160 miles. We'll have four days there. Mike is planning the agenda for the next couple of days. Touring the bourbon distilleries is on his bucket list. I'll just be along for the ride.

For now, we need to start buttoning up and getting ready to take off. There's probably some time for slow-stitching, so I'll head there next.