Workt Exhibit - The Birds

I had the good fortune to visit the Workt by Hand exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City.
The exhibit travels to Washington DC - National Museum of Women in the Arts December 20, 2013 - April 27, 2014.

The Exhibit Catalog can be purchased HERE.

This is one of the gallery rooms with quilts.  We were so fortunate to be the only ones in the exhibit for a couple hours. I took over 1,200 photos.

For this post I'm featuring the birds.

This bird block is from a circa 1850 Album Quilt.

The quilt is hand applique and hand quilted.

The maker shows off her sewing machine with areas of machine work.

Enlarge the photo to see the red stitching around the fruit in the tree.

This block is from the same album quilt.

There is embellishment stitching around the eye, wing and body of the bird as well as in the flowers.








This block is from the circa 1795 Pictorial Quilt
(England or Ireland)

Wonderful parrot - made from multiple fabrics with embroidered details.

The mono print flower is still so vibrant after 200+ years.

Linen ground fabrics
Beautiful prints in the entire piece.

Since this piece isn't quilted, I think it would be more appropriately called a counterpane.

This is the other parrot in the piece.

Different fabrics, but the wing is still blue, even though the head went from pink to brown.

This is one of several birds in the Elizabeth Welsh Medallion Quilt (West Virginia)
circa 1830

Almost all of the applique on this quilt is reverse.
Impressive!  Several nearly identical quilts have been found.

The head of the center medallion Eagle

Double reverse applique eye with embroidery detail enhancing the eye and mouth.






Surrounding the central eagle figure are several floral arrangements that include birds.  These are also reverse applique.

This beautiful example was assembled by the maker from two or more prints.  The vessel is one print.  The contents were cut from a larger print(s) and assembled in a pleasing manner to create her arrangement.









Same quilt, again reverse applique.

In this photo you can see part of the outer borders.

Same quilt.
Reverse Applique.

The branches to the left are what the eagle talons hold from the center Eagle Medallion.  About 1/4" of less reverse applique.

This photo shows more closely how various portions of print fabrics were combined to create the "assemblage" that creates the bird/floral vessel composition.

Beautiful!





Do you like the birds?
Are you making a quilt with birds?
What would you like to see next from Workt?  Star blocks? The fabrics?  Edge finishes?