Searching for Quilts From Southwest Virginia
Volunteers analyze a quilt for the statewide research project. Area quilt owners can bring quilts to the Jax Center on Oct. 18, from 10 am to 4 pm for a Quilt Documentation & Discovery Day.
Quilts tell us about our past. That is why quilt historians are looking for local quilts and stories about the makers to add to a statewide research project. On Saturday, Oct. 18, 2014 volunteers from the Floyd Quilt Guild and the Virginia Consortium of Quilters will be photographing and recording information about quilts from 10 am to 4 pm at the Jacksonville Center for the Arts.
Quilt owners are asked to bring their quilts and family history to add to the state’s database. Quilts will be measured, patterns identified, dated, and photographed. Owners can learn about their quilts, about care, and storage. No appointment is needed. Documentation is free and will be handled first come/first served. Owners are requested to bring a photograph of the quilt maker, if available, for copying. There is a limit of three quilts per person.
Quilts being documented are not limited to antiques. “We’re also looking for 20th century quilts to see how quilters and styles have changed over the past century,” observed Neva Hart, local quilt historian from Hardy, VA. “The emphasis will be on quilts made by Virginians, but all quilts brought to the Documentation Day that have not been documented in other states will be recorded.”
A statewide survey was created about 25 years ago which included older quilts in the Commonwealth, according to Hart. The original project, which took more than five years to complete, registered more than 3,000 quilts. “We learned a lot about quilts from that effort,” she said, “Now we hope to document quilts we may have missed and to document quilts from new residents.”
The data gathered will be available for use by researchers of history, genealogy, and material culture of Virginia. Information collected is archived at the Virginia Quilt Museum in Harrisonburg, VA. Confidentiality of quilt owners will be protected.
The Jacksonville Center is located at 220 Parkway Lane South, Floyd. For more information please email nevahart@verizon.net or call (540) 427-0184, or on Facebook at “Virginia Quilt Documentation.”