Posts Tagged ‘New England Quilt Museum’

New England Quilt Museum to Sponsor Quilt Classes for Children

Saturday, April 9th, 2011

PRESS RELEASE

Pass the fun and creativity of sewing on to a new generation!

Do you have children or grandchildren who would love to learn to sew? Are you looking to spend some quality time with them that isn’t just another mindless couple of hours at a movie or in front of a television? Would you like to help them learn new skills that will last a lifetime?

Join Collections Assistant Brianna Martineau this spring and summer for learn-to-sew classes at the New England Quilt Museum. These fun classes are aimed at beginning sewers and their older helpers. Each one teaches a particular technique and allows students to take home a project they’ll be proud to show off to their friends.

Space is limited, so call today to sign up: 978-452-4207, ext.16.

Class Schedule
LEARN TO SEW WITH BRIANNA

“Westward-Ho!” Apron Workshop
Tuesday April 19th: 10pm-1pm
Skill level: Beginner. Recommended for school-age children 6 -12 accompanied by an adult who sews.
Skill addressed: Clothing construction
Time: 3 hrs
Fee: $50 (includes fabric and thread). NEQM Members receive a 10% discount.
Please bring your own sewing machine, scissors and pins.
In this learn-to-sew class, we will make an antique style single pocket apron out of the New England Quilt Museum’s reproduction fabric line from the 1840s. We will study a few of the Museum’s collection quilts and talk about what it would have been like to be a child living in the 1830s and 40s.

Making Potholders
Wednesday April 20th: All-Day Drop-In
Skill level: Beginner. Recommended for school-age children 6 -12
accompanied by an adult.
Skill addressed: Weaving.
Time: All-day drop-in activity. Plan on ½-1 hour.
Fee: $10 kit fee. No other materials required.
In this Spring Break drop-in activity, we will use a simple traditional hand loom to weave cotton loops into colorful potholders. This is an historic pastime that dates from the 1930s, when children used cut-off strips left over from hosiery and sock mills to weave bright potholders.

“Star Over New England” Doll Quilt
Saturday May, 14th: 10pm-1pm
Skill level: Beginner. Recommended for school-age children 6 -12
accompanied by an adult who sews.
Skill addressed: piecing
Time: 3 hrs
Fee: $50 (includes fabric and thread). NEQM Members receive a 10% discount.
Please bring your own sewing machine, scissors and pins.
In this piecing-for-beginners class, we will piece and quilt a 14″x 14″ doll’s quilt containing a historic block based on a quilt-as-you-go technique (“potholder style”). As part of the class, we will walk through the gallery and look our current exhibition, One Foot Square, Quilted & Bound­­–quilts constructed with that technique, several of which were made for wounded Civil War soldiers.

1840s Doll dress (for an 18-inch American Girl type of doll)
Saturday June 4th: 10pm-1pm
Skill level: Older beginner: school-age children 6 -12
accompanied by an adult who sews.
Skill addressed: Clothing construction, hand piecing
Time: 3 hrs
Fee: $50 (includes fabric and thread). NEQM Members receive a 10% discount.
In this hand piecing for beginners class, we will learn to sew without a sewing machine! Students will assemble a shift dress for their 18″ doll and learn the skills needed to make more doll clothes at home. As part of the class, we will walk through the gallery and discuss our current exhibition of quilts, several of which date from the Civil War era. Bring your buttons!

Embellished Bag Project
Saturday July 23rd 10pm-1pm
Skill level: Older beginners & teens who are comfortable with their sewing machine.
Skill Addressed: simple bag construction
Time: 3 hrs
Fee: $50 (includes Kaffe Fassett fabric and embellishing kit). NEQM Members receive a 10% discount.
Please bring your own sewing machine, scissors and pins. Bring your favorite buttons to embellish this easy tote. In this introduction to bag construction, we will look at some of the Museum’s contemporary quilts to draw inspiration for decorating your very own art bag.

SPACE LIMITED.
CALL TODAY TO SIGN UP: 978-452-4207 ext.16.

NEW ENGLAND QUILT MUSEUM
18 Shattuck St.
Lowell, MA 01852

978-452-4207

www.nequiltmuseum.org

This announcement is brought to you courtesy of Quilter’s Muse Publications

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Gold Party at the New England Quilt Museum – November 13

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

Service Announcement Provided by Quilter’s Muse Publications

Gold Party at the New England Quilt Museum

November 13, 4:30-7 p.m.

Do you need extra cash for the holidays? Do have odds and ends of jewelry around the house that you’ll never wear–a single earring, a broken bracelet, a tangled chain? Do have jewelry from a former relationship you really don’t want to wear? Or a piece given to you as a gift or legacy that is not your style, but you can’t bear to re-gift it? You can turn those pieces into cash for the holidays and benefit the museum as well.

Party of Gold, a local woman-owned host of “girls’ night out” gold parties that benefit numerous local non-profits, is hosting a gold party on Friday, November 13th–which might be your lucky day! Our last Gold Party netted hundreds of dollars for participants, who brought in their broken or unwanted gold and silver jewelry and received payment for each recyclable piece. As a benefit for the museum, Party of Gold donated an amount equal to 15% of the purchases to the museum. So popular was the event that we are hosting one again–just in time to help you find some extra cash for the holidays in those odd pieces in your jewelry box!

If you cannot attend, but want to donate unwanted jewelry to the museum, just mail the jewelry as your donation in a padded envelope to the Museum at 18 Shattuck Street, Lowell, MA 01852, Attn: Party of Gold, and we will send you a receipt.

So join us on November 13, from 4:30-7pm to enjoy some refreshments, get cash for your holiday shopping, and benefit the museum. Please bring a photo ID.

The New England Quilt Museum
18 Shattuck Street
Lowell, MA 01852
978-452-4207
www.nequiltmuseum.org

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Contemporary Master Quilters Exhibition Opens November 19 at The New England Quilt Museum

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

For Immediate Release

Lowell, MA—October 12, 2009. The New England Quilt Museum is excited to announce their new exhibition of international art quilts. “Masters: 40 Contemporary Master Quilters,” opens November 19, 2009 and explores the cutting edge of art quilting, with today’s most regarded global quilt artists represented in this comprehensive exhibition.

Guest curator Martha Sielman has assembled a seminal collection of representative works by master art quilters, explored in this exhibition and in Sielman’s companion book, Masters: Art Quilts. This expansive look at state-of-the-art quilting brings together works by artists from around the world including Australia, the UK, Japan, Israel, Hungary, France, South Africa, Denmark, and Belgium.

Metamorphosis by Jane Sassaman

“Metamorphosis” made by Jane Sassaman in 2000

Artists included in the exhibition include Noriko Endo, whose detailed, realistic landscapes have won critical acclaim worldwide, Kyoung Ae Cho, whose minimalist wood constructions push the boundaries of the fiber art form, and Jane Sassaman, whose bold, sinuous designs have been widely respected among quilt lovers for over 20 years. The exhibition shows not only the wide geographic reach of quilting, but also its thematic range.

From energetic sculptural works to deeply personal portraits, from meticulous visual narratives to enigmatic still-lifes, art quilting embraces as many diverse forms as contemporary painting or sculpture. For those unfamiliar with the medium, the exhibition is a great introduction—for those who have long appreciated the art quilt, a welcome chance to see old favorites and new discoveries.

Sielman, herself a contemporary art quilter whose commissioned works are featured in many corporate and private collections, set out to gain a comprehensive view of contemporary quilt art, researching the works, techniques, and design philosophies of some of today’s leading artists.

The result was first her book Masters: Art Quilts, published in 2008 by Lark Books, and now the exhibition that bears its name, showcasing representative works by each of the forty artists profiled in the book.

This exhibit at the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell is the only stop in the Northeast for the exhibition, and its last stop. This exhibit is the only chance for many to see key works by international artists seldom shown in the United States.

Masters opens on November 19, 2009, with a formal opening reception on Saturday, November 21 at 1pm. Sielman will be signing copies of her book, Masters: Art Quilts at the reception. The exhibition will run through February 25, 2010.

About the New England Quilt Museum

The New England Quilt Museum, located in Lowell, MA, preserves, interprets, and celebrates American quilting past and present.

Museum hours are 10 AM-4 PM Tuesday through Saturday; and Sundays 12-4 PM, May through December. The museum is closed during the first two weeks of January (Jan. 1-18).

Admission is $7, $5 for seniors and students, and free for museum members. Two for one admission for WGBH and AAA members.

Visit www.nequiltmuseum.org or call 978-452-4207, for more information.

–
Christina Inge
Public Relations and Marketing
New England Quilt Museum
18 Shattuck St., Lowell, MA 01852
978-452-4207, ext. 19

This announcement brought to you by Patricia Cummings, Quilter’s Muse Publications as a public service.

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Upcoming Talk To Address Textile Production in New England Mills

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

Excerpt From a Press Release – New England Quilt Museum

Textile Timeline: “Woven to Wear”

Saturday, October 17, 1 p.m., New England Quilt Museum, 18 Shattuck St., Lowell, Massachusetts

“Woven to Wear,” is a lecture by historian Pam Weeks that will address textile production in New England mills in a concise 210 year history of textiles manufactured there.

Through case histories of natural and manufactured fibers, Pam documents the rise and fall of our textile heritage.

Come explore how New England helped to clothe America for nearly three centuries. That includes production of the fabric used to make George Washington’s suit that he wore to his inauguration!

Refreshments will be served.

To learn more about October events at the museum, please visit New England Quilt Museum.

This announcement is brought to you as a courtesy, by Quilter’s Muse Publications.

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N.E. Quilt Museum Opens New Exhibit: “MASTER PIECES: Haberdashery Textiles in Antique Quilts”

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

NEW ENGLAND QUILT MUSEUM
Lowell, Massachusetts

For Immediate Release

The museum calls this quilt the “Grandpa Quilt.” This mid-20th century necktie/portrait quilt was created by an unknown maker. photo by Fletcher Boland

The New England Quilt Museum is pleased to announce their first exhibition of the Fall season, “MASTER PIECES: Haberdashery Textiles in Antique Quilts.” Featuring quilts made from menswear, some of it recycled clothing, this remarkable exhibition brings together over 40 intriguing graphic works made from simple utilitarian fabrics long overlooked in the study of antique quilts. The guest curator for the exhibit is noted antiques dealer and author, Laura Fisher, of FISHER HERITAGE in New York City.

The antique quilts on exhibit are made of menswear fabrics recycled from suits and shirts, neckties, pajamas, military uniforms, work clothes—even woolen underwear and socks. Some also resulted from the artful salvage of menswear swatch sample books and fabric mill remnants.

Popular for about a century, these quilts are compelling and often whimsical. Simple squares arranged in a diagonal pattern prove on close inspection to be made from scraps of patterned jersey socks. A shimmering kaleidoscope of diamonds in rust reds and yellows is pieced from 1950s rayon neckties. Thin lines going in every direction look like a contemporary drawing but are actually random scraps in a crazy quilt pieced of circa 1915 striped silk shirting. The narrow serpentine strips in the blocks of a 1905 Amish quilt are cuttings from woolen long johns. Bright, dimensional pinwheels are embroidered on an unlikely foundation of tailor’s wool suiting swatches, as are a flock of vividly colored birds on branches.

Visually stunning and strikingly modern, these antique textiles make distinct graphic statements out of the most everyday materials.

In addition to the quilts themselves, the exhibit will feature historic advertisements, swatch books, and catalogs from menswear businesses, dating from the 1900s through the 1950s, including several items from the vaults of Brooks Brothers, the chief sponsor of the exhibition.

The tradition of making unique, often very personal quilts from re-purposed menswear textiles gained popularity around 1850, and lasted through the 1950s. Today, the tradition revives in memory quilts made from old T-shirts and clothing that has personal sentiment. Recycling these materials is now considered environmentally aware, adding further appeal to their inherent design potential.

Laura Fisher will be speaking about the exhibition’s content at the opening reception on September 26. In addition, historic textiles expert, Pam Weeks, will deliver a lecture about textile production in New England mills on October 17.

Support for this exhibition is provided in part by Brooks Brothers and by P&B Textiles.

Fabrics inspired by one of the quilts in the exhibition, in the style of the early 1900s, have been produced by Marcus Fabrics and are currently available in the Museum shop, with proceeds to benefit the museum.

The opening reception is sponsored by School House Quilters.

About the New England Quilt Museum

The New England Quilt Museum, 18 Shattuck Street in Lowell, MA, preserves, interprets, and celebrates America’s quilting past and present.

Museum hours are 10 AM – 4 PM, Tuesday- Saturday; and Sundays 12 – 4 PM, May through December. Admission is $7 for adults, $5 for students/senior citizens; Museum members are admitted free.

Visit http://www.nequiltmuseum.org or call 978-452-4207 for more information.

This announcement is brought to you, courtesy of Quilter’s Muse Publications.

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