It wasn't the easiest of places to find and our Sat Nav wasn't working!! But we found it. There is no parking outside, but there is a multi storey around the corner and blue badge parking was free, which is unusual in that sort of car park.
The museum is quite small on three rooms to look in so not too much to take in and staff were very friendly and helpful. The exhibition rooms are on 1st floor, but there is a disabled lift. Admission is £6.00 for adults, but as I am in a wheelchair the carer gets in free, another bonus to being disabled!!
The current exhibition is by Kaffe Fassett, the lady assumed that as I had made a quilt I would know who Kaffe Fassett was, er no sorry who? Kaffe had taken 15 quilts from the museum collection and made his modern take on them. I thought I made bright quilts until I saw his!! You can find out more about the exhibition here and here. You are allowed to take photos of the quilts, but we were so busy looking that we didn't. I have to say although Kaffe's quilts are bright and modern, we actually preferred the old ones, in a way they were so much more impressive and the fact that they were made by hand out of scraps rather than the modern quilts made with perfect material and very precise lines and stitching with machines.
Our favourite quilt was a little bed quilt
Kaffe's interpretation is shown on the wall.
The shop has fabrics related to the current exhibition, books and kits. We ended up buying a greeting card, magnetic mosaic, Kath's Kubes (just the kubes and instructions so I can use my own fabric, but now I have to get some vylene, but me being me doesn't know which one I need or where to get it from!!) and Kaleidograph Paper Design Toy (crystal). The trip and some of the purchases were paid for by my Mum as a birthday present, so I don't feel so bad for buying things! Of course I have no idea when I will make the Kubes as my fabric is currently in a storage unit due to our building work.
It was great to be able to go at our own pace and look at things leisurely, you can't do that with an 8 year old tagging along, but it's also small so not to overwhelming and not too much to take in, so as things go quite ME friendly.
The current exhibition runs until 5th September. The next exhibitions are Quilt Art Dialogues and History of Quilting running from Sept 11th to Oct 31st. The museum is open Mon to Sat 10 - 4. I will definitely be visiting again. On the website the Collections page allows you to see many of the quilts that they have in the archive or from previous exhibitions, there are some amazing ones.
My favourites include
(above is in the current exhibition)
We found a lovely cafe next door Le Langhe, the food was great and the staff very helpful and friendly, there is seating indoors and out. There weren't many gluten free options, but what there was, was excellent and they had a gluten free cake! I don't normally eat cake, but on a special day out, you don't say no do you?!
I did of course suffer for having a day out, but sometimes you just have to go for it and accept the consequences, it was nice to go to something that interested me, spend some time with my husband and get out of the house, which is not peaceful at the moment!
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