This week-end—ALL weekend–I have been taking Merikay Waldvogel’s "quilt history" type classes. Our guild booked her last year, and I was poo-pooing the whole thing–stewing in silence because I am so NOT a traditional quilter, nor do I care about traditional quilting.
But was I ever wrong!
If you ever get to meet or take any of Merikay’s classes or go to one of her talks, I urge you to do so. She is SO interesting. On Friday night she talked about the scandal at the 1933 world’s fair in Chicago where thousands of quilts were entered and 2 of the judges quilt designs won.
Then yesterday she gave an intensive class on dating fabric as far back as 1850. That was so, so interesting. And she showed us at least 30 of her quilts and we dated them as part of our grade. Several women brought in their own oldie quilts and we admired them.
Today we did newspaper paper piecing (say that 10 times) with feed sacks from the 50’s. I do paper piecing all the time, but this was way more fun. We all exchanged fabric strips and I just got a call from a women who was excited that she just finished 16 squares. It is 9pm. :-) lol
This is one of mine:
There are some teachers I love, some I admire and some I think should design rather than teach… Merikay is in the first category–she is a lovely, gracious and knowledgeable women. If I took her classes, when I don’t even like or care about historical quilts and LOVED it, think how much you all might like it…
PS–Last night and today I am reading her "Patchwork Souvenirs of the 1933 World’s Fair" and it is even better than her talk! What an incredible writer she is……
Bye for now. I know, its a long post. I was sooo excited!
The Wilderness City Quilter 