Quilters, start packing and put the Virginia Quilt Museum in Harrisonburg, Virginia, on your travel bucket list! You won’t be sorry…
I’m a lazy, creative person who moves from project to project as my interests wax and wane. Sometimes, you need to be inspired to start a project or, in the case of my unfinished quilt, which had been sitting in a box for a year, finish a project. I was so incredibly inspired by my visit to the Virginia Quilt Museum that I finished my quilt a few weeks later!
About the Virginia Quilt Museum in Harrisonburg, Virginia
The Virginia Quilt Museum is one of only a few museums in the world dedicated entirely to the art of quilting. Set in one of the first homes in Harrisonburg, the museum showcases traditional and modern quilts on three floors of gallery space.
Located in the historic Warren-Sipe House home in downtown Harrisonburg, Virginia, the Virginia Quilt Museum began with 14 quilts in 1995 and today boasts a permanent collection of 288 quilts—the oldest quilt dates from 1806, and the newest quilt from 2017.
The museum collects quilts of all ages, styles, and types. However, it narrows its focus to quilts from the state of Virginia. In addition to the 288 quilts in the permanent collection, there is also an education collection of 50 to 75 quilts (not all originating from Virginia) that travel to quilting guilds or schools.
Playland Exhibit by Susan J. Lapham
The exhibit showcases two series of modern quilts created from 2020 through early 2023. Focused on machine-pieced quilts using thousands of tiny bits of fabric that explore colour, balance, line, and shape.
Along with the permanent collection of quilts in the museum, you can also see travelling exhibits and exhibits from different artists. When I visited the museum, four special exhibits were available – one containing quilts from the permanent collection and the other three from travelling artists.
The collection consists of a mix of traditional and modern quilts. The traditional quilts tend to come from their permanent collection, skewing more towards the historic 1940s and earlier – most of the quilts are from the 1800s.
To round out the collection, there is a collection of approximately 65 historic sewing machines and general sewing ephemera, such as bobbins, needles, and books.
I found this BOYE Commodity-Cabinet fascinating. Invented and patented by James H. Boye in 1906, this cabinet made it possible for customers to buy their sewing machine, needles, bobbins, and shuttles from a general store. Any store employee could search for the machine’s name on the cabinet and instantly find the correct accessories.
Where does the Virginia Quilt Museum find most of their quilts?
Enquiring minds want to know. Luckily, I was guided by Alicia Thomas, the museum’s Executive Director.
Brashears Baltimore Album
Donated by Josephine Yenney Barber
95”x97”
Circa 1848
“Made predominately in shades of red and green, it is typical of the era. This quilt was created in memory of Joseph Brashears, a ship’s captain from Mayo, Maryland.”
“It’s mostly donations, and we, like all museums, have a collections committee that makes those decisions. So, people generally email us some pictures and the information they know about the quilt. We pass this information on to our collections committee, and they decide based on what we already have in our collection. So, if someone were to say, for example, “Oh, I’ve got this great crazy quilt,” we’ve already got about 35 crazy quilts – so we aren’t taking any more. But then, if it’s something that would fill in a gap in our collection, we look at the condition, what’s known about the quilt, where it came from, and if there is any family history that goes with it.”
“Sometimes, if we know something we want is coming up for auction, we have some donors we can reach out to and say, “Hey, do you want to buy this for us?” But that doesn’t happen very often. Unfortunately, we are a very small nonprofit, so we don’t have a budget to buy.”
During my visit to the Virginia Quilt Museum, I was fortunate to get an up-close look at one of the three new acquisitions made in 2023, as Alicia showed me the back room.
“A woman called and said I have a quilt I think you guys should have. She said, “I’m not a quilter – It was given to me by a friend after being passed down through their friend’s family…but I’m going to be in Harrisonburg in a week.” Two of our collection committee members happened to be here the day she came by. And she laid the quilt out on the table and started unfolding it, and we saw like a corner of it – only about 6 inches, and we were like, we’ll take it!”
“One of the fascinating things about this quilt that we were all surprised by is that some of the quilting they did was in coloured thread, which is not something you see in most historic quilts. So, where it’s brown, they use brown thread, and where it’s white, they used white thread, which modern culture would completely do.”
“So, our date on it is circa 1830.”
How do you know when a quilt was made?
Staff at the Virginia Quilt Museum have a reference library of fabric swatch books to help identify the year by comparing colours, designs, and motifs to help determine the date. In this case, the butterscotch-coloured fabric is very 1830s.
Another tip to help identify the year is the style. “If you see dense quilting done in intricate designs, it’s almost always pre-civil war.” There are trends in quilting, as there are trends in everything.
Here are a few other quilts that caught my eye during my visit.
Joy
By Holly Cole, Triangle, Virginia
48” x 56”
2020
“Layers of cotton. Fabric painted, silkscreened, and free motion quilted art quilt.”
Nebula
By Barbara Hollinger, Vienna, Virginia
30”x30”
2023
“Cotton and silk fabric, glass beads. The spectacular images the Webb Telescope provides create a limitless vision of the space surrounding us. The luminescence of the interstellar light show creates boundless possibilities as we gaze into the future.”
Fish Crazy Quilt
By Lucinda Robinson-Rice, New Market, Virginia
26”x52”
Circa 1885
“The embroidery consists of feather stitches surrounding each square. The mouth of the fish is made of twisted floss fringe, and the front contains ribbon tape attached to tassels.”
The Virginia Quilt Museum is open year-round, Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., except for a few weeks at Christmas.
PRO TRAVEL TIP: If your travelling partner’s eyes glaze over at the thought of a “quilting museum,” there are comfy rocking chairs on the porch, a Heritage Bakery and Café at the Visitor Centre, and free Wi-Fi with air conditioning in the Public Library across the street!
Oh… and about my quilt – my first quilt isn’t worthy of being on display at the Virginia Quilt Museum, but it is proudly on display draped over the living room sofa in my home.
Don’t look too closely because you’ll see a few sewing mistakes and my tired face from sewing all weekend!
Where to stay in Harrisonburg, Virginia?
We stayed at Quality Inn in Harrisonburg and loved our accommodations. Look forward to a review article coming soon.
Where to eat in Harrisonburg, Virginia?
We dined at Mashita, Ridge Room Rooftop Bar, Jimmy Madison’s, and Black Sheep Coffee. All were fabulous. Again, look forward to a food article coming soon. Jimmy Madison’s is only a couple of blocks away from the Virginia Quilt Museum.
Special thanks to The Virginia Quilt Museum, Visit Harrisonburg, and Virginia Tourism.
For more articles about Virginia, check out:
- A Historic Stay at the Mimslyn Inn Luray, Virginia
- A Pleasure House Oysters Tour in Lynnhaven, Virginia
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