Claire Vlasin Quilts - Off to the Smithsonian

I will get back to my trip shortly but wanted to pass this on.  Claire Vlasin was a member of the Capitol City Quilt Guild.  She was a collector of quilts and beaded evening purses; Ray was a collector of Czech glass.

Part of Claire's collection is going to the Smithsonian, 43 quilts and later some will be going to the University of Nebraska.  Last winter I spent quite a bit of time appraising Claire's quilts for Ray.  In April I got a call from Ray that the Smithsonian shipping people would be there to box and move the quilts to Washington DC.

He thought I might like to come and watch how such a move is done and be sure they got the right quilts.  So April 18 I was there when 2 guys from a  moving company out of Chicago arrived to pack the quilts.

 I can't say they represented the company they worked for very well.  Holey paint spattered sweat pants and I think the other guy needed a size larger pants  as by the end of the day I was well aware he had black underwear on.  But I guess that is neither here or there.

With the list they has I started to pull the quilts in order.  They used large acid free boxes that held 3 quilts each.  I think after we started they realized that they didn't have enough boxes and we would need to put 3 in each box.  We also decided to label the boxes with the numbers of the quilts inside.

 Ray wanted his picture taken with this crazy quilt as it was a 40th anniversary gift for Claire.  I think this one was hard to part with.

I believe it took 4 hours to get them all packed.  Ray and the crew standing in front of the pile of boxes that held 43 of Claire's precious quilts.