Paducah

 After leaving Opryland, we came to Paducah, home of the National Quilt Museum.  I have been here before, but this is Trish’s first visit.

Paducah is an interesting little town that is historically dominated by the river. Here the Tennessee loses itself into the Ohio and a few miles away the Cumberland joins before they all become part of the Mississippi.  There is a series of murals on the river flood wall beside town that tell of the town’s important river history.

The Quilt Museum is downtown two blocks from the river.  There are constantly changing exhibits here and right now the two dominating are a giant wall with over 3,000  squares, one named for every person killed on 9/11.  This is leading up to the Twentieth Anniversary.  There are also a series of COVID quilts.

Full wall with 9/11 quilt panels.

There are few traditional quilts on display at this time.  Most of the work we saw was very contemporary.  What I really learned was to appreciate the possible artistic additions possible with good mechanical quilting.  I had thought this to involve only patterns of quilting but learned that a good long arm person can paint with thread and texture in amazing ways to totally finish the quilt top as beginning place.

The texture of the wood is all added by the long arm machine.

We both had a wonderful appreciative and educational visit.