Billings Farm & Museum’s 21st Annual Quilt Exhibition
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007Press Release
July 1, 2007
Susan Plump
Woodstock, Vermont…Billings Farm & Museum, gateway to Vermont’s rural heritage, will host its 21st Annual Quilt Exhibition from August 4 – September 23. Extended through late September this year, the exhibit will feature more than 50 quilts made by today’s quilters of Windsor County, plus quilting activities and demonstrations for all ages.
A variety of challenge quilts will also be exhibited. Something You Like, using blue and green fabrics, is the theme of The Delectable Mountain Quilters challenge. A challenge requires certain design and construction rules agreed upon by the guild members to increase their quilting skills, while they enjoy comparing results. There will be two quilting bees held by Upper Valley quilting guilds during the Quilt Exhibition.
Quilts have been a part of American rural life for over 300 years. They are colorful testimony to the fact that farm life, while sometimes austere, held celebration. The women who settled in Vermont during the late 18th century brought with them the hand skills, thrift, imagination, and traditional designs which would develop into a peculiarly American art form: the patchwork quilt.
Today’s Vermont quilters carry on a continuing and evolving tradition. Much of the contemporary work of Windsor County quilters is composed of patterns handed down from earlier generations and executed by hand; some adapt the traditional craft to more modern expressions and materials. All require skill, patience, and imagination.
Admission to Billings farm & Museum’s 21st Annual Quilt Exhibition includes the working dairy farm, orientation and farm life exhibits, the restored and furnished 1890 Farm House, plus daily programs and activities.
The Billings Farm & Museum is owned and operated by The Woodstock Foundation Inc., a charitable non-profit institution founded by Mary French and Laurance Spelman Rockefeller. For further information: (802) 457-2355 or www.billingsfarm.org
Billings Farm is a working Jersey dairy farm that continues a century-long tradition of agricultural excellence and offers farm programs and historical exhibits that explore Vermont’s rural heritage and values. Since opening to the public in 1983, the Farm & Museum has served as a gateway to Vermont’s rural heritage for over a million visitors and 100,000 of the region’s school children. Open daily through October 31, 100:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and weekends. November – February. Admission: adults: $10.00; over 62: $9.00; students (13-17): $8.00; children (5-12): $6.00; (3-4): $3.00; under 3: free. The Farm & Museum is located one-half mile north of the Woodstock village green on Vermont Route 12.


