Airing of the Quilts History

The Airing of the Quilts is a traditional rite of spring in the mountains.  After a long winter with families snuggled under layers of warm handmade quilts, the warmer weather of springtime gave women a chance to freshen up and air-out these essentials covers.

2021 Airing

On Saturday April 3rd, 2021 visitors were able to drive-by and socially distance in the yard while enjoying the traditional rite of airing the quilts in the spring.  In past years this event has up to 65 quilts hung on the wraparound porch, on clotheslines in the yard, and on quilt racks and other surfaces throughout the first floor of the museum. This year we opted to air out the quilts readily available to us. Some are from the
Quilts Displayed on Museum PorchMonteith sisters and others were loaned for the day from our board members.

We are thankful to be able to have visitors enjoy this scaled-down version of the in-person event this year. In past events we also have booths set up to exchange quilt patterns and fabrics, demonstrations, and more.

In lieu of the usual booths in-person we did a Airing of the Quilts virtually on our social media. On Maker Monday’s we highlighted local quilt makers, who included: sisters Edna Corine and Edith Irene Monteith, Frances Owl Smith, Gale Zejdlik, and Dave Russell. On “Way Back Wednesday’s” we dove into some history of quilting and its many uses. On “Three Free Thursday’s” we gave away free quilt patterns. On “Saturday Story” Time we had quilting story book reading with children. If you would like to see any of these posts please visit our Facebook or our Instagram!

Enjoy the beautiful submissions from this year along with some of the Monteith sister’s quilts.

For the more photos, history, and free patterns check out our Facebook and Instagram!


2019 Airing

Enjoy these lovely registered quilts displayed at our second annual Airing of the Quilts, May 2019.