I went home to Northern California for Christmas, and although I’ve been back for a week, I haven’t had a chance to blog about it until now! While in Northern California, I took a day trip to San Francisco to visit friends from college and to check out some art museums. I know that there is quite a bit of debate within the knitting community about what is art and what is craft and whether knitting should be recognized as an art. Still, I kept seeing folk art and traditional crafts in art museums all over and over again! I thought that you might be interested in what I saw.

I started out in Berkeley, and literally stumbled upon Lacis Museum of Lace and Textile by accident. This place is an amazing resource for all things lace. Knitted, crocheted, tatted, bobbin, woven…they were all represented at Lacis. There were antique lace samples on display, as well as books and tools for anyone who wants to make their own lace.

Bobbin Lace

Knitted lace doilies

Lyra shawl pattern, first published in 1939 and listed on Ravelry here.

Then I took the Bart under the bay and went to the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in downtown San Francisco. They currently have an exhibit called Open Source Embroidery which is all about craft created by a collective group and combining traditional crafts with technology.

Travis Meinolf had a backstrap loom installation where anyone visiting the museum could weave and record patterns on the chalkboard next to the looms.

There was an English Paper Pieced HTML color chart with embroidered hex codes. I loved that, because I’m working on an EPP quilt right now.

And this embroidered piece had electrical wires and LED lights incorporated into the stitching, so it lit up!

After that, I headed over to Golden Gate Park and visited the DeYoung Museum. The DeYoung always has crafty exhibits, a few years ago, I saw the Gees Bend Quilts there.

This time, there was an exhibit about Amish Quilts, which were just stunning. This particular quilt is a Lone Star pattern.

And there were some installations of Ruth Asawa‘s crocheted wire sculptures.

It was nice to take a vacation, see my family, and get some more creative inspiration. But I’m happy to be home again too! <