Textile Museum, Toronto

Lynn, Sandy and I, all members of crazyquilters.ca met this morning at the Textile Museum in downtown Toronto. Mr. & Mrs. Tannenbaum are the owners of a wonderful quilt collection which is on view at the Museum. Many of the quilts are crazy and are absolutely beautiful. We read that Mrs. Tannenbaum collected the quilts because they were art pieces. The crazy quilts on show were mostly made around 1880 and there were many that were made from tiny plain and patterned silk pieces which absolutely glowed. Much of the stitching was of shiny thread which added another glow! As you will see from the photos, there are some traditional quilting patterns, one in particular the log cabin, which almost became a crazy quilt with the rich fabric and some embroidery, here and there. I appreciate more so the work done by Miss Carole Samples in documenting hundreds of seams and motifs from old quilts in her book "Treasury of Crazy Quilt Stitches". The three of us decided that we would meet again in the New Year to share our talents, and of course if there any other crazyquilters.ca in the GTA, Lynn said she could seat 10 comfortably! By the way, there was not a bead to be seen on any of the quilts! Lynn and Sandy standing beside a Kashmir shawl.

The embroidery on this was mostly chenile. Close ups of this one are below

Close up of the quilt above

This is stunning, and below it I have several close ups.

I think this was my favourite. There was just so much embroidery, and it was very colourful. I found that if you double click on the photos to enlarge them, then click on the elargement to get it even more magnified.