when derek informed me that we were spending a couple of days in lincoln, nebraska, i got to work googling, yelping, trip advisoring, and all trails-ing, to see what things there might possibly be to do in lincoln. aside from our obligatory capitol trip and homestead national monument, i didn’t find much for kid friendly options. i was, however, pleased to discover that lincoln is home to the international quilt museum. that’s right. international. it was closed on mondays, which was our only full day in town, but i was able to squeeze in a visit before we left on tuesday. anna even joined me for the outing.
we were decidedly the youngest people there that day, by decades. we chatted with several other quilt enthusiasts and even met some rv travelers from north carolina. small world, right? we wandered around, admiring all of the handiwork, even though much of it was not really in my style.
some of the quilts were just impossibly amazing pieces of artwork. i guess one would expect this in the international quilt museum. some were indistinguishable from a photograph or painting until you got closer.
i don’t know if you can tell, but all the parts of this jellyfish are pieced into the log cabin blocks that make up the quilts. there’s no applique, even the red outline and tentacles (are they called tentacles?).
we loved this alphabet quilt, which combines some intricate embroidery with quilting. we wanted to take a picture of each individual letter, but settled for A for anna, S for sarah, and the B because of the bees. 🙂
since puff quilts are all the rage right now in the quilting world, it was fun to see a very old (less puffy) puff quilt on display. and i loved the more vibrantly colored quilts on display the most. obviously.
this quilt was my absolute favorite of the bunch. it’s colorful. whimsical. modern. scrappy. all the things i love.
and now for a big old photo dump of a bunch of other quilts we saw.
after the main gallery, we checked out a few smaller rooms that were upstairs. our favorite was a sort of kids room. there was a display of doll quilts, which gave anna inspiration for things to make for her minecraft guys. and this very fun chair, reupholstered in tiny quilted triangles. i can’t even begin to imagine the work that went into this. nor can i imagine allowing it to be used with abandon by the general public. the slight bit of wear and tear on the edges made me cringe.
and lastly, in the kid room, there was a shelf entirely comprised of quilt themed childrens picture books. we have read some of these, but i mostly took this photo to have as a reference, should i find myself in the market for childrens picture books about quilts. why are my kids so old already?
anyhoo. we knocked out the museum in about an hour or so, scooted back to our campsite (aka: a walmart parking lot), and soon we were off to our next location on the long trip to our homeland….