Visiting Louisville for a Stitching on Paper Class

My husband and I recently went to Louisville so I could attend a class and lecture about stitching on paper. First, though, I want to talk about where we stayed and other things we saw while we were there.

We stayed at the Central Park Bed & Breakfast. (We stayed in the Rose Garden Room.) We had such a good experience with this stay. It was very close to the University of Louisville campus, which is where my class and lecture were; that made it very convenient for us. The cost was less than what we would have paid at The Hampton Inn for that weekend. (We checked.) We had wonderful hosts, a nice suite, snacks and drinks (including some good bourbon, wine, and moonshine) at no extra cost, good company, and a great breakfast. We had heated towels in the bathroom, a KEURIG with all varieties of coffee and teas right outside our room, and bourbon balls in the candy dish in our room. Rob and Eva were great hosts. If you get a chance, you might want to visit. Here are a few pictures of the inn.

We ate at Buck's our first evening there. That is a fabulous place to eat--fresh flowers, a piano player in a tux, good service, and great food. The atmosphere is old-school elegant. I just love it.

Before my workshop, we made a trip to the Speed Art Museum. We spent almost three hours there, and I didn't even get to the Contemporary section (which evidently included several pieces of fiber art I wish I could have seen). It is a place I will definitely visit again. (Free admission on Sunday's; it is usually $12 a person.) We enjoyed a very good meal at the museum restaurant; don't pass that up if you have time to pick up a bite while there.

Here are some of the pieces I really enjoyed. In the Native American section, these beaded pieces REALLY caught my eye.

Click on these for a close-up view of the beadwork. I'm in awe.

I saw three quilts while there. I enjoyed them very much. Virginia Mason Ivey made this quilt about 1860. There are trapunto flowers, farm animals, and even a statue of Henry Clay in quilting on this quilt. She copied the depiction of the statue from an engraving published in Harper's Magazine. Quilts like this were made for display rather than day-to-day use. The edges of this quilt looked like tassels (see bottom right). If you take a close look at the top middle picture, you can see a rider on a horse, a cow, and a duck in quilting.

This 1884 crazy quilt was made by Fanny Owen Woolfolk. In the bottom right picture you can see a closeup of a souvenir ribbon from the Louisville Southern Exposition (a massive fair of industry and art) which displays the year "1884." I love the fabrics (bugs, top right) and the fancy embroidery stitches (bottom left). I thought this quilt was very interesting because the crazy quilt part of this quilt is the border for the central log cabin blocks.

This Cross-Border Quilt by Mary Mize is dated between 1850 and 1855. It is believed that the maker and her family resettled in Clay County, Kentucky, to escape Confederate Tennessee for the Union state of Kentucky bringing this quilt along with them.

The last fiber piece I saw at the museum was this piece by Alma Wallace Lesch. She called it "Ful-O-Pep," and it was made in 1972. The description card for this embroidered piece says, "Textile artist Alma Lesch created something new to represent something old; an embroidered representation of a feed sack. Lesch, who grew up on a farm in western Kentucky, often referenced rural living in her work. Her nostalgia for textiles associated with country life--feed sacks, quilts, overalls--connects her to other artists from the 1960s and 1970s who shared her romance for the rural."

I'll talk about the lecture and show you what I did during my workshop with embroidery artist Nick DeFord in my next post.

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