The “Infinite Variety: Three Hundred Years of Red and White Quilts” exhibit was a generous birthday gift from Joanna S Rose’s husband, and in turn, her gift to us. For six days in March, 2011, the American Folk Art Museum exhibited six hundred-fifty quilts from her personal collection in New York’s Park Avenue Armory. An additional part of her gift was a digital guide to the exhibition, including installation photographs and video lectures, available for your iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad or Android smart phone. Go to the Apple iTunes App Store or Android Market for the free download. Gay and I spent those six days immersed in our apps, bemoaning the fact that we weren’t in New York. Each day, we would talk about the quilts and say, “let’s make this one, let’s do that one, this one is my favorite”, and so on until we were exhausted. We gathered up the red and white quilts in our own collections, though few in numbers, and shared them with each other, hoping to share this joyous event in some way.
We realized, of course, that we could never make all of our “favorites.” In fact, the two of us have an interesting track record when it comes to completing quilts. We love to plan, design and shop for the fabrics for a quilt. However, our modus operandi is to put all the things we have gathered for the quilt into baskets, beautifully labeled and ready to stitch…….someday.
Infinite Variety presented us with a tremendous challenge: how in the world could we make ALL our exhibit favorites? In one of those aha moments, we decided to make a sampler featuring each one. We want to share this mystery quilt with you! Just Takes 2™ is our present for you to make and enjoy during the New Year 2012.
The quilt’s name had it beginning with Mr. and Mrs. Rose, the 2 who so generously gave us the Exhibit. The quilt “just takes 2” fabrics and the 2 of us will be giving you 2 sections of the quilt each month from 2 websites. The 2 of us have had a very good time planning and designing this quilt for you, and we know this is one quilt we will have to finish!
Choose a friend to make this mystery quilt with you. The 2 of you will have a wonderful journey!
We are grateful to all of the anonymous women who shared a part of their lives by making these wonderful quilts. We also want to honor Mrs. Joanna S Rose with our quilt representing her years of loving and collecting these treasures. Our wish is to ‘play it forward’ by sharing the Just Takes 2™ Journey with you!
Pieceful Stitching!
Gay and Brenda