Luncheon Lectures

Luncheon lectures are $20 per person, which includes sandwich of your choice, chips, fruit salad, cookie, and beverage. To sign up for a lecture use the Luncheon lecture signup form, now online. It is in PDF format. To access it, you need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader; download it from the Adobe web site.

Saturday, Oct. 17, 2009, 12 noon

New York Quilts through History

Marilyn Bradley, Deb Grana, and Linda Miller

These expert collectors will explore the history of New York quilts through a trunk show of their beautiful antique quilts. This presentation will feature quilts exhibiting the styles and fabrics of different time periods.

Each of these collectors expresses a deep interest and love of antique quilts. Their enthusiasm has resulted in extensive and impressive collections, items from which have been shown at the Vermont Quilt Festival in 2005 and 2007. They will also be contributing to the VQF’s 2009 show. For many years, Marilyn, Deb, and Linda have studied textile history to learn more about the quilts and those who made them, in addition to taking classes on how to date and appraise quilts.

Such pursuits have resulted in expertise in the materials, techniques, and skills used by quiltmakers of the past to produce such beautiful results. These collectors are also quilters and each is active in local area quilt study groups that research and document antique quilts. They each express a connection and appreciation to the legacies of the women whose stories are stitched into these quilts.

Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009, 12 noon

Our Journey to Art Quilts

R.A.T.S. - Retired Art Teachers Sew

This accomplished group of quilters will be showing both their earliest attempts at art quilts and their most recent creations. They will describe the course of their exploration: “It has been a bit of a bumpy journey but we hope it will encourage you to try your hand at venturing into art quilts.”

Around 1997, a group of art teachers who had recently retired and who knew each other during their teaching days, began meeting to engage in their shared interest in quilting. They began their exploration by learning all the techniques of quilting that they could handle and soon began excursions into the realm of Art Quilts. Initially, there were six
members, but in 2001 Jeanette Pace died leaving five: Pat Clahassey, Libby Lee, Betty Koban, Betty Martin, and Edie Smith.

The R.A.T.S. meet each week at each other’s houses for critiques and encouragement and sometimes gossip. They discuss ideas and techniques for art quilts and push each other to take the leap to try something different. They have had success in selling and showing their work, but these accomplishments do not measure success. Rather, they say, “our success is measured by the challenges we give each other to continue making artwork, because we can’t come to a meeting without anything to show.”