The New York Quilty Post

I flew into New York on the night of Halloween. The train rides from JFK airport to my Jersey City hotel were particularly memorable. I was just about the only one on the subway not in costume, and not headed for the parade in Greenwich Village. I had a great time on that little journey. People were friendly, chatty, fun, and sober....or they had me fooled. "Where you from, you not from round here" "Nooooo Zealand, howabout that".

The next day I walked the length of Broadway, and took myself to the American Folk Art Museum to an exhibition of antique quilts titled A Legacy in Quilts: Cyril Irwin Nelson's Final Gifts to the American Folk Art Museum. They were extraordinary. Worth my trip. Really. Many were familiar, I'm sure they've been much photographed, and I've probably seen them before. To get so close, to such works of art, of such great history. Well, I enjoyed them enormously. This was one of my favourites. You can see more on the museum website.

Then I went to meet Mary. I was late, I got the subway in the wrong direction. Didn't make that mistake again. Anyway, Mary kindly loitered and eventually spotted my lime green bag, so we had coffee and talked and talked and walked off to a lecture she'd heard about. We went to the Fashion Institute of Technology, to see Kaffe Fasset.

Kaffe was promoting his new book, which is about knitting. He's a great speaker, the slides he showed were extraordinary. I confess I've seen him speak before, here in Wellington, but I enjoyed seeing him again. His messages remain the same....colour, glorious colour.....and just do it, focus, and get on with it. Yes sir, doing my best. Mary wrote about it here (scroll to Nov 6). And Kay wrote about it here (scroll to Nov 2). The next day we three went shopping. I met them here:

(after I spent the first part of the morning taking myself up the Empire State Building. Well, me and 100 other tourists).

I bought this book. This wonderful, beautiful, heavy book. It's here on Amazon of course. I can't recommend it highly enough. It has quilts from 10 years of the Quilt National exhibition. It's just beautiful. And it has lots of the quilts I saw in San Jose, so that makes it even more special to me.Then we went to Soho, to Purl. Ahhh, Purl. First, the yarn store, where Mary and Kay bought beautiful things and I took photos. Kay interpreted for French tourists also buying yarn. She should've got a commission I reckon.

And Purl the fabric store, just up the road.....both very small stores, but perfectly formed. You haven't heard of them? You're not reading enough crafty blogs then. Here's the link to their blog. You can find their online store via that link. Yes, I bought fabric this time, pinks, chocolates, and teal/duck egg blues. Beautiful. Soho is where I'm going to stay next time I'm in New York.