UNUSUAL TEXTILES AT THE VIRGINIA QUILT MUSEUM (Cheri)

A portrait of an astronaut?

Not really.

We saw some exhibits at the Virginia Quilt Museum yesterday.  There were six themed exhibits, but only one piece like this:

The Monterey Museum of Art once had a stunning exhibit of many faces which were entirely free-embroidered like the portrait above.  I wish I could find my pictures, to see if it they were also created by Eileen Woods.

What I mainly went to see was an exhibit of 25 quilts featuring tobacco silks.  Living here in North Carolina, you don't see very many people smoking anymore, but you do see a lot of vintage tobacco-related art and advertising.  (You may recall my earlier post about an exhibit at the Reynolda House Museum & Gardens on the subject.)

There were 25 quilts in the exhibit, in a wide variety of styles using the slight pieces of silk, and occasionally other fabric, which U.S. and European tobacco companies included - like baseball trading cards - with tobacco products, from about 1870 through the 1930's.

There is a really complete history of this practice at Laurette Carroll's blog AntiqueQuiltHistory.com.

I was so inspired by the variety of techniques that Greta Mikkelsen used to support the stars of these quilts.

This triptych quilt inspired me to get out the masses of vintage linens and laces that I own and start working with them!

The images on most tobacco silks were printed, but a few, like the ones used in this quilt, were intricately woven:

A few "silks" were actually made of lightweight felt:

Mark had fun pointing out various silks in this quilt, because each girl was carrying a humongous purse.  "I can see you with this one!"

This was my favorite.  The silks and surrounding sari fabrics glowed like a dusty sunset:

I would very happily have bought that quilt, but it was priced at $1,700.  The quilt prices ranged from $500 to $2,900.  Of course, even the silks themselves are not cheap.

(Shoot!  Looking for an authority on the cost of tobacco silks, I accidentally found another cache of vintage cotton fabrics for sale.  These are things I should not know.)