Fanshawe Pioneer Village

This year's guild banquet was at Fanshawe Pioneer Village. We had our dinner in the Miller Barn.

It was a beautiful, rustic setting but the benches were uncomfortable!  But the highlight of the evening, for me, was going to be viewing the infamous collection of antique quilts that the village stores, but rarely puts out for display.

First we walked to the Jury homestead where a few quilts were on display in the rooms.

Then we headed to their processing center, where they catalogue and store their artifacts.

This is how they are stored on racks, rolled on acid free rods and covered with white sheets. They draped about 8 of them for display with a few smaller items on the table.

 my favourite was this red and white signature quilt....each signature hand embroidered!

a very interesting crazy quilt:

hand-pieced hexagon quilt, circa 1930-40's

the quilter cut her hexagons from the city directory

a top, never quilted, so many 1 inch squares!

a collection is never complete without a log cabin quilt!

 a well-worn quilt!

It was truly wonderful to see these old quilts, I wish we could have seen more, but obviously many are so fragile, but still a tragedy that they are hidden away. Our guide says she thinks it will take 5 years to finish cataloguing them...I think they do not have enough staff or volunteers... it would be nice if we cannot see them that they take some professional photos and produce a book, postcards or a calendar of these awesome treasures....I guess we will have to wait and see.