Special Events

• Every Thursday - Raffle Quilts and Community Quilt Projects. Work Days are from 10am to 3:00pm. Museum staff and volunteers meet to work on a variety of quilting projects— assembling raffle quilts to benefit the museum, organizing student projects or finishing the quilts begun in local schools, as well as teaching small groups the FUNdamentals of quilting.  Visitors learn about quiltmaking and the museum’s connections with Lowell schools and community organizations. 

  The first projects for 2008 will be the completion of two of the museum’s latest raffle quilts. “JUST SPOOLS “ was created using the remaining blocks from two earlier Community Quilting projects—the Spools 500 Race Track and the NEQM Car Cover. “OFF THE WALL”, in honor of our 20th Anniversary features the patterns from the mural painted on the back of our building. Learn helpful hints as the finishing touches are added. The winning tickets for both quilts will be drawn on December 19, 2008.
  
  In conjunction with Lowell Women’s Week Public Art Project Roots of Strength, we are also inviting quilters and sewers to submit 12½” unfinished quilt squares featuring their favorite leaf and tree patterns. The squares may be pieced or appliquéd. On Thursdays between January 24 and March 6, museum staff and volunteers invite visitors to assemble blocks, or pick up a packet with fabrics and a pattern to assemble a block on your own. We hope to accumulate 120 quilt squares to complete 10 lap size quilts. On Thursdays between March 13 and June 26, staff and volunteers will work to complete the quilts in order that they be featured as a part of the Community Quilting Exhibit at the 2008 Lowell Quilt Festival. Thereafter, the quilts will be donated to local organizations such as Project Linus, the Visiting Nurse Association and/or the Wish Project. For more information about LWW, see www.lowellwomensweek.org.
  
  

• First Thursday - Brown Bag Lecture Series from 12:30-1:30pm.
  Bring your lunch and enjoy a lecture.  Free to members or with museum admission.
  
  January 3: Ann Lee, Friends Fabric Art, “The Challenge of Unusual Materials”
  Many people are drawn to newly available materials and embellishments because of the beautiful colors and textures. Some are uncertain whether they will effectively include them in their quilts. Learn how to incorporate silk cocoons and rods, mulberry bark and other novel items. Ann will share a variety of works incorporating such unusual materials and discuss how to design your quilts to use out of the ordinary embellishments.
  
  February 7: Let's Play: Challenges and Puzzles POSTPONED DUE TO WEATHER
  Museum members and volunteers are invited to share their challenge quilts inspired by unusual themes and their techniques resulting in the unexpected interpretations.
  In addition, there will be puzzles, games and prizes for everyone!!
  
  March 6: NEQM celebrates Lowell Women’s Week with free admission.
  10:30 – 12:00pm Roots of Strength: Trees and Leaves for Quilts
  Join us to assemble quilt blocks for Lap quilts to be distributed to area charitable organizations. NEQM staff and volunteers will share basic machine piecing and appliqué techniques. Sewing experience NOT required!!
  12:30 – 1:30pm The Traditions of Trees and Leaves in Quilts
  Women began designing their quilts with patterns of trees and leaves, in both patchwork and appliqué, in the nineteenth century. See how traditional two-color bed quilts evolved into contemporary wall-quilts
  2:00 – 3:30pm Roots of Strength: The Traditions of Tea Time
  Join NEQM staff and volunteers for Afternoon Tea. We will discuss some teas’ history and ask participants to share their personal stories of tea’s cultural significance and family tradition.
  
  April 3 : Let's Play: Challenges and Puzzles
  Museum members and volunteers are invited to share their challenge quilts inspired by unusual themes and their techniques resulting in the unexpected interpretations.
  In addition, there will be puzzles, games and prizes for everyone!!
  
  May 1: Whole Cloth Surface Decoration with Ethel Shulam
  Ethel plans to demonstrate some of her favorite techniques like monoprint, rubber stamping, transfers, painting and rubbing plates using Shiva paint sticks.
  
  June 5: Monoprinting on fabric with Ethel Shulam
  Ethel had so much to share in May that she's agreed to come again in June to demonstrate monoprinting on fabric.
  
  
• Third Thursdays - Book Club from 12:30 to 1:30pm. Free with admission to Gallery.
  
  The titles featured for the 2008 Museum’s book list (pdf) include fiction and non-fiction selections that relate to the exhibit or quilting and its history. Join museum staff, volunteers, members and visitors as they share their impressions and reactions to the author’s work.

  If you are not in the Greater Lowell area, consider reading these books and sharing them with friends or your own book group. Let us know your impressions of our selections. Email your comments to outreach@nequiltmuseum.org. And if you have suggestions of titles for next year's book group, please share them with us.

  January 17: Museum closed
  February 21: Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years by Elizabeth Wayland Barber
  March 20: The Quilter’s Homecoming by Jennifer Chiaverini
  April 17: Book group rescheduled
  May 15: A Purple Thread for Sky by Carol Bruneau
  June 19: They Named Me Marjorie by Ann Zemke
  July 17: Anonymous was A Woman by Mirra Bank
  August 21: Liz’ Mercantile and Leaving Riverton by Jodi Barrows
  September 18: Quilty as Charged  by Spike Gillespie
  October 16: American Patchwork by Sonja Hakala
  November 20: The New Year’s Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini