Badass Quilts Come To the VMFA!

The second best thing to spending an afternoon making things yourself has got to be spending an afternoon admiring things that other people made. Yesterday I went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to see the American Quilts exhibit and do just that. Wow. Those old-timey chics had it going on. Even if it was my daily pursuit to do nothing but work on a quilt that represented my hopes and dreams for my impending marriage like these girls did, I'm really not sure I'd end up with a finished product that showed such incredible craftsmanship and commitment to detail.

Even though the current craft movement seems to be at least in part triggered by our lives being too cluttered with made in China junk, lots of what I and many people choose to make is still often based on efficiency. If I'm not a child of the YouTube generation, I'm at least a cool aunt of that generation and I almost always make quick, I-can-work-fast-and-be-wearing-this-by-Friday projects. The women behind these quilts clearly had an entirely different tolerance for long-term crafting endeavors. And for that reason, I think it's perfectly appropriate that their crafts end up in an art museum to be admired by thousands of visitors and mine end up in drawers, around my neck and under my bed to be used up and replaced by the next project that captures my attention.

Since there is no photography allowed in the museum, here is a picture of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I enjoyed in the cafe afterward.

One-Upping Urban Outfitters

I have a love-hate relationship with Urban Outfitters. When I'm sick of sifting through dirty socks and logo-ed coffee cups at thrift stores, I love that I can go to UO, shell out five times more money and instantly get something that gives me some amount of hipster cred. I hate though, that when I go in there, I almost always also find some made-in-China version of something I've recently spent months making myself. I swear I'm in some secret Urban Outfitters focus group--a focus group that's so secret, I don't even know about it.

But this time, I'm one-upping Urban. I fell in love with this green fabric tapestry there. I backed it with brown cotton and now I'm quilting the hell out of it to create a queen-sized bed spread. Unfortunately, it probably won't be finished by the time UO is stealing my future children's creative ideas.