A Visit to Latimer Quilt and Textile Museum

Last Saturday when I took a road trip with my friends to Tillamook Or on the Oregon coast for tea, we stopped at the Latimer Quilt and Textile Museum. I am the only quilter in the group, but this place is amazing and is so entertaining, you don't have to be a quilter to enjoy your time there. It's housed in an old school house which makes it all the more charming. Please take some time to visit if you are in the area. There is also a room devoted to weaving, spinning and knitting, so all the fiber arts are represented.Classes are offered and exhibits change throughout the year in the old auditorium, which still has the stage! Remember that from your childhood? You can become a member for $20 per year to support the museum and enjoy some of the extra's. Of course, there are always goodies to purchase...finished products, patterns, fabric and yarn.

Nancy had called ahead and discovered that the repository was opening again for 3 showing on Saturdays. You get to go behind the scenes and see some vintage quilts and other goodies in the back storage room. Quilts are carefully kept in wonderful boxes to preserve them.

Do you know what a BED TURNING is? They have a bed and it's layered with about 15 vintage quilts. The volunteers, with their gloves, go through the layers and turn them so you get to view the entire stack! Great way to see so much and it's just a fun way to flip through the quilts.

Here are some of my favorites to share with you. This first one was made from hexies that were soooo tiny. The little triangle blocks were only about 3 or 4 inches long, so the hexies were tiny. Everything was hand done. Get this....this was this lady's very first quilt! We all wondered if she ever made another quilt in her life!!!

Beautiful examples of hand applique. I was interested in these as I am just learning to hand applique.

The quilt below is quite old. They dated it to be about 175 years old. The really interesting thing about this one was the tiny tiny binding! I had never thought about bindings really. I guess that even can help you date a quilt.

You know how I like Sunbonnet Sue! This one was so sweet all in blues.The volunteer was telling us funny stories about people either liking or disliking Sunbonnet Sue. I can't imagine not liking Sunbonnet Sue. 

These are the special boxes used for storing the quilts in the climate controlled repository.

My eye spotted some dolls on a back shelf. They were new arrivals, so the lady didn't know much about them. The cornhusk dolls were so bright and really cute.

I liked the collection of paper mache dolls as their outfits were amazing. They were up on a shelf, so it was hard to get photos. They seemed to be dressed in different time periods, so I wonder if that was the dollmaker's plan.  I liked this one in the cream colored dress.

The back of this French Fashion doll's dress was amazing. Lots of work.

 These ladies were in a glass case so I got a bit of shine. An old fashioned quilting bee!

We were all fascinated with this quilt top. The entire thing was sewn on newspaper. Was this an early type of paper piecing?

 There were boxes and boxes of fabrics, of course. They will help you with a piece the right era if you are trying to repair a section of a vintage quilt. Of course, museums are not doing that, but individuals often wish to. Museums now are just placing a piece of netting over the area to stop it from falling apart yet not disturbing the original work or fabric.

I could have stayed ALL day but my friends had reached their limit and the museum was closing! Cannot wait to go back. So fun to live in quiltland for a bit!