A Visit with Claire & Ray Vlasin!

I had an afternoon flight out of Lansing on the day that I returned home from Michigan.

An invite from Claire and Ray Vlasin to view their beautiful home and their quilt collection was a welcome way to fill those hours – and my mind—with some amazing quilts!

Claire is a very accomplished quilter herself, and we found ourselves with so much in common!  She loves traditional scrap quilts and is an avid piecer.  She started collecting antique quilts many years ago, and is lucky enough to have a hubby that encourages her and supports her in her endeavor to preserve these priceless heirlooms.

Not only does Ray gift her with antique quilts for special occasions, such as a birthday or an anniversary, he is also an avid collector of beautiful art glass, and his pieces can be seen displayed throughout their beautiful home – the colors of the glass complimenting perfectly the radiant colors in Claire’s quilts.

One special quilt – I wish I had thought to photograph it --- contained photographs of their long life together from the time when they were young, in love, with their whole life ahead of them.  I remember seeing Claire in her nurses uniform after graduating from nursing school.  Her smile in that long ago photo sticks in my mind, and she has that same smile and twinkle in her eye today.

Not only do they revere and collect quilts – they are preserved and stored in a climate controlled room – complete with special racks and a quilt storage unit that Ray designed for Claire.

This rack holds many of Claire’s quilts and some antique quilts!

Just as with my visit to Michigan State University and the Great Lakes Quilt Collection – these quilts are rolled on museum quality acid-free tubes made of cotton rag.  The covering you see is NOT plastic, but breathable mylar and protects the quilts.  Don’t you wish you could unroll and view each and every one of these quilts? 

Another rack lines an adjacent wall!

Those quilts looked wrapped up as giant pieces of eye candy!  Which one would you unroll first?  If you look to the right of the photo…you’ll see some drawers…these drawers slide out much like highly designed kitchen cabinets --- each drawer chock full of beautiful antique quilts on rollers.  Look:

Wow!  I definitely wanted to unroll that tumbling block!

((And we did! I’ll share that in another post!))

I spy a Carolina lily in cheddar and red!

The blazing star with the pink print background calls to me too…Yummy!

Oh goodness!  Each drawer so full of treasures!

Evening star, Crazy Ann, bring them to me!

Close-up of print fabric on the Evening star!  Bright and clear as if it was new!

Remember Mr Rogers?  One of these things is not like the others?

From the back to the front we have Axe Head or Apple Core, Sunbonnet Sue, Broken Dishes, and ---

CRABAPPLES!

I was so honored that Claire had made a quilt from my Crabapples pattern and included it in her archive of special quilts.  Fun to see what fabrics she used too!

Drawer after drawer of incredible workmanship – a testament to the lives of Quilters Past.

Each quilt is tagged with information about the quilt, when and where it was acquired, etc.

Rosemary leans in for a closer look!

Other vintage items are stored in archival boxes on the shelves behind.

Did we get to see ACTUAL quilts rolled out?  Yes, we did!  I plan on sharing those with you one at a time so we can fully enjoy them together.  The whole morning was magical!

Guess what is on THIS roller?!

Be sure to come back for future posts so you won’t miss any of the gorgeous quilts we got to see!

Have you checked back on our Mystery Monday Link-Up?!  There are over 200 people linked and sharing their posts on their mystery progress!  HOLY. MOLY. MYSTERY, Batman!  That’s a LOT of linkies!  Click HERE to check out what is going on all over this globe!

You have until tonight at 11:59pm Eastern time to add your link to this linky --- if you miss it, don’t worry, you can share any progress of any part on the next Linky-Up that happens next Monday. 

One thing I’ve forgotten to say at the beginning of this mystery is to RELAX.  It’s NOT a RACE.  Do what you can.  Sew what you can of each step along the way, but when the next step starts ---stop what you are doing on the previous step and move on to the next one.  That way you will have some of each done and it will be easy for you to go back later and finish what you didn’t get far enough on.  It will keep you current and involved and raring to go with the next step.

Tomorrow morning --- Part 2 is revealed!

No Quilt Cam tonight --- but look for me tomorrow night, Friday evening at 9pm Eastern.  You can be sewing mystery parts while I still plug away on Moth in the Window blocks ;c)