Favorite Wool Quilts and Not Much Else

This week is jam-packed and frankly I have no original thoughts for this blog post. But then again, pictures of antique quilts are what you're reading this for, right?

When I'm on the road teaching and lecturing, the question is always asked (sometimes in an acerbic tone) : "Do you bring real quilts or are we going to see yet another slide show?"

Audiences want to see quilts 'in the cloth.' I understand. Presenting a slide show, particularly at an evening meeting of the local quilt guild, is like a great big invitation to a siesta. Here in the South especially, quilters sated on sweet tea and desserts will nod off as soon as the lights go down.

Maybe I should do a "mime lecture." That's where I won't say anything but just hold up quilts and let the audience admire them. That said, I have oodles of pictures of quilts on my computer and it's time to put them to work. The pictures here are of wool quilts. Not as popular today as cotton but formerly, when you needed a warm quilt, wool was the fabric of choice.

The Solomon's Puzzle quilt is from my own collection and was in Happy Trails, the book I wrote on the Drunkard's Path pattern. This thing is heavy as a dead mule. It's all wool, heavily machine-quilted, and that brown is an old Army blanket.

I saw this wonderful quilt while in Spokane, Washington at the North-West Museum. The blocks are a variation on the Fifty-four Forty or Fight pattern-makes you want to work in solid colors when you see a piece like this!

And I missed this incredible Welsh wholecloth quilt on ebay. It has a dragon quilted in it! And a harp! And I should have cashed in my IRA and gone for it. Feast your eyes.