Saturday, June 15th is the last day that the much loved Virginia Quilt Museum will be at the Warren-Sipe House in Harrisonburg.
The time had come to move on to a different venue, with better accessibility for patrons, and a different layout to allow more quilt exhibitions and a variety of textile art.
The packing and sorting has begun, to get ready for the move to the historic Silver Lake Mill in Dayton.
In speaking with Museum Executive Director Alicia Thomas, she said the time had come to find a new venue. “One of our main challenges with this building, is that it is not handicap accessible. We have the ramp to the front door, but our whole 2nd floor is not accessible, and putting in a lift or an elevator is hugely expensive. Not only is this not serving many of our visitors, but it knocks us out of a lot of funding opportunities, because we are not fully accessible. When we leave, the building will revert back to the City of Harrisonburg.”
In January, the VQM Board discussed possibly making a move, and one of the Board members knew the owner of the Dayton Mill. When she asked her what plans they had for the building, coincidentally, Cheryl Lyon, owner of the Mill, was getting ready to list it to look for tenants. Alicia and the Board member went to look at the Mill the next day. The rest is history! February 6 started the ball rolling!
There are 4 floors to the Mill and VQM is renting the top 3 floors. The ground floor will still remain an event center. There will be two floors of exhibition space and the top floor will be for offices and storage. Alicia states “It is roughly the same square footage as the Warren-Sipes House, but just a better layout. The first floor is basically one big room, the 2nd floor is 2 rooms.”
The museum has 2 full-time paid staff, Alicia as Executive Director, and the curator. There is one paid part-time staff member, and 10 core volunteers, who come once a week or once a month. During the school year, the Museum gets a lot of volunteers from JMU. In the summer, those student volunteers are gone, so now would be a great time to volunteer, according to Alicia!
The space at the Mill will open with 2 new exhibitions – Sacred Threads, a bi-annual quilt show’s traveling exhibit, that is made up of about 40 small pieces. The other exhibition is from The American Quilt Study Group, displaying small medallion quilts.
Some of the Museum’s historic quilts will be on display in the new location as well. On August 9th , Mia Clift will be there doing a talk on sewing machines, and demonstrating on treadle sewing machines. On Sept 21st, Erin Grogan of Love So Modern will be at the new location with her trunk show and discussing her new book. Pat Sloan will be back in the fall. The workshop done with Pat based on the Harrisonburg quilt will have an exhibit starting September 17th. Pat will be there one day in the fall (TBA) to talk about this.
With a backround in museums and non-profit organizations, Alicia has been the Executive Director for 2 ½ years. She spoke of the colorful history surrounding the Warren-Sipes House, with its last incarnation as the quilt museum. Major Joseph Latimer was a young Confederate soldier, who was here, when the house was used by the hospital for overflow patients. Sadly, Latimer died here in the house, and is thought to be the resident spirit. Hopefully, he will enjoy the new tenants when the Museum moves out.
The original Dayton Mill was built in 1822, burned several times before and during the Civil War. It was finally rebuilt in 1867, and continued as a functioning grain mill until 1996. The current owner bought the historic building then. There will be better parking in this new location for the VQM. Also, it’s only a mile from Patchwork Plus, the largest quilt store in the area of VA, and a big supporter of VQM.
The projected opening date of The Virginia Quilt Museum at the Dayton Mill at Silver Lake is June 29. There will be food, prizes, and much more. In the meantime, donations are accepted to help fund the museum and the move. Volunteers are always needed. There is also a quilt raffle going on right now, a beautiful reproduction of an 1830 Madison County, VA quilt made by Isabella Tatum Tucker (1810-1866). See the photo.
Stop by the Museum on their LAST day at the Warren-Sipes House to wish them well. That will be Saturday, June 15th, free admission, and the museum will extend their hours to 6pm on that final day.
If you would like to become a member of the Museum, and enjoy all the perks that come along with membership, visit:
www.vaquiltmuseum.org/support/membership
540.433.3818
