Billings Farm & Museum hosted its 36th Annual Quilt Exhibition from June 4 -July 10, 2022. The juried exhibition annually features colorful quilts made by today’s quilters of Windsor County.
In addition to the array of juried quilts, guests can test their eagle eyes with our Quilt Exhibition Scavenger Hunt and explore other quilting genres through interpretive displays on site and online.
Historic Quilts from the Billings Farm collection are typically on display. The quilts range from the 1870-1900s and the techniques and patterns used are examples typical of the late 19th century. Quilters of Windsor County often use traditional patterns in their works, giving tradition a contemporary twist.
Challenge Quilts are also be on display annually. A quilt challenge requires specific design and construction rules agreed upon by guild members, with the goal of improving their quilting skills. For 2022, the Delectable Mountain Quilters guild used neckties made of silk, wool, cotton or polyester in traditional patterns, applique, or non-traditional techniques.
The 36th Annual Quilt Exhibition was sponsored in part by
View the Quilt Exhibition press release.
Vermont’s Quilting Heritage
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 distinctive American art form: the patchwork quilt.
Vermont quilters of today carry on the heritage and ever 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.