European Patchwork (Julie there's a barn in here!)

 Katherine Roumanoff was there working on another one of her creations while she talked to people.  She spoke French and I don't so I only could watch as she made choices and cut out pieces of fabric to place on her composition.  She glues them into place with that brush she is using.  I really didn't see where she had used any stitches to hold them on.

I was thinking that she just needed a lot of pieces for this show and would get to that later.  But maybe this is the way she leaves them.

They were supposed to be members of her family from 1998 to 2043.....which I didn't understand enough French to know how she could tell the future.

Here are two barns, I believe they were located in the village of Liepvre France.  Liepvre began as a monastery in the 8th Century by a monk called Bobolinus.  King Charlemagne talked about it in 774.  Imagine that?  

Another monk called Fulrad decide to build a building for the monks.  Fulrad's parents were very rich and provided the money for the monastery.  The original name was Fulradochella.  After the monastery was completed, Charlemange donated the money for a convent in 769.  Charlemange had acquired the land from the mayor of the area who was skimming money from the King's tithes. Wufloald was condemned to death for high treason but Fulrad interceded.  His possessions were taken and later given for the Convent.

After Fulrad's death there was a scuffle for property ownership and at one time Charles the Bald and then Lothair were in charge.  Interesting that they were really concerned with hair or lack thereof.  Like much of the area, this went back and forth in ownership and allegiance over hundreds of years. 

In  990, the monks were having a problem holding on to their possessions and everyone who came through with knights or an army would take their stuff.  The Armagnacs were armed gangs of mercenaries living on plunder.  They were Spanish, French and English under the control of Dauphine Louis XI.  That is how the Duke of Lorraine ended up owning the lands in 1384.  

The Dukes decided to defend the monks but used the power to  take the profits of the lead and silver mines in the area, Val d'Argent or Valley of Silver.

Once the reliquary that contained St. Alexander's bones was broken in 1602 the priory was falling out of favor with the Lorraine Dukes.  The church was destroyed when the English came through the area but the Dukes would not defend the Monks because of their debts to the Lorraines.

A new church was built in 1752 and that is the one where the quilts we see are displayed in the Exhibit.  The church's bell came from the old Convent from 1542.  It was hidden in a meadow during the Thirty Years War and dug up a century later.  

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In this new church there was a display of cat hangings (not cat hanging) done by an online group of about 50 people.   They were all the same size, about 20 inches by 30 inches high.  All types of techniques were used so it was interesting to see the different interpretations of the prominent cat figures.  

Below here is the Best In Show quilt.  I took a picture of it, thinking what an ordinary quilt.  But what you see in the photo is not what you see when you look at the quilt in person.  On the bus that night heading back to the hotel, someone said, there were 5 elephants in that quilt.  No way! everyone else said.

So we got out the cameras and sure enough, elephants!

In the same building there was Angela Walters.  Yes, our Angela Walters.  Angela is President of the European Patchwork group. Imagine that!!!

When I was taking the photos she was busy judging the Best in Show in another area.

 I tried to take the photos of English on the cards, but I guess I missed the mark on this one.

This was Erick Wolfmeyer from Idaho USA. He only brought 4 quilts but they were 10 feet by 20 feet long.  All hand pieced and all hand quilted.  It was striking how huge these quilts were!  

 Here is Frank in front of the quilt called Poppy Field.

That shows you how huge these quilts are.