Something to Check Off of My Bucket List

Today I visited the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln. They house a collection of over 4000 quilts. On a typical visit you see only about 40. They regularly rotate shows. The three galleries I saw were: log cabin variations; quilts from kits 1915-1950; and new aquisitions. Here are a few of the ones that particularly impressed me. 

Court house quilt, a log cabin variation. 

Pineapple log cabin variation. 

This is a recent acquisition from Uzbekistan. 

This was my favorite. Here are some close ups fingers are for scale, they are 3"blocks. 

(I didn't touch, btw)

The quilt is an original design. It was the makers first quilt and it won 1st prize at Nebraska state fair in 2000. WOW

After Quilt House we visited the Nebraska capital. It dwarfs Oregon's that is for sure. We took an informative tour but I kept seeing potential quilt blocks where ever we went. 

Here are floor shots from the Saunders County Courthouse 

We spent time in the courthouse looking at records from Dan's great-grandfather's land purchases back in the 1880's. 

His name was Thompson Bissell, and he sounds like quite a guy. After we left the courthouse we drove to find some of the area or at least vicinity of where he lived. 

The land beyond the lower left corner of the sign was part of his ranch south of Ithaca. Later we went to the Homestead Monument south of Lincoln and saw a digital image of Thompson's sister-in-law, Sarah A Bissell's land claim. It is available online through a program called "Fold3.com". I did not realize homesteads were available as recently as 1987. 

We crossed the Missouri today. 

So now we are in Iowa. We are staying in county fair ground park in the town of Missouri Valley. We are trying to decide what route to take to New England. We prefer to avoid major metropolitan areas and freeways. We are very open to suggestions. 

Where is your next journey going to take you?