Thursday, December 17, 2009

New Antique Quilts in the Big Apple (for Robin)


I'll never in my lifetime get to see everything in New York City that I want to and now must add another item to the list. Textile merchant extraordinaire Mary Koval has just opened a store selling her beautiful old quilts and textiles in the city! It's called Green Planet New York Ltd and is at 520 5th Avenue.


Mary and her husband Joe are always in attendance at the Houston International Quilt Festival, plus they exhibit and sell overseas (Tokyo, Paris etc). Their wares span centuries: toiles and palampores from the 1700s right up to mid-century (1950) folk art quilts. Mary also designs fabric lines for Blank Quilting.


But if you're a quilter you can't go to the city without visiting The City Quilter! http://www.cityquilter.com They're at  133 West 25th Street,  between 6th (also called Avenue of the Americas) and 7th Avenues. And you can bring home a lovely fabric souvenir since City Quilter prints NYC-theme fabrics. Take a look at their Subway Map against black--wouldn't an old fashioned Log Cabin design done in this smart stuff be a great modern take?

But how can you do NYC without a visit to the best deli ever? I'm referring to Katz's of course. http://www.katzdeli.com/presentation.html You remember: it's where Meg Ryan (Sally) has her favorite melt-down in "Harry Met Sally" and an onlooking woman says, after Meg stops groaning and writhing, "I'll have what she's having..." This is also the deli where a huge sign in the window says: Send a Salami to Your Boy in the Army. The slogan got international recognition when Jerry Lewis in his first flick "At War With the Army" (1950) sang the beans song  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWhhoySpevw and this was forever embedded in our brains-- "The navy gets the gravy but the army gets the beans, beans, beans, beans..." Love it. So go have fun in New York--see some great antique quilts, buy some fabric, and pig out on pastrami at Katz's.