Vermont Quilt Festival: New England's Oldest and Largest Quilt Event Friday, June 27 - Sunday, June 29 at the Champlain Valley Expo

Festivities begin on Thursday, June 26, with the Awards Ceremony at 6:45pm, honoring the quilt contest winners and awarding of the Governor's and Lt. Governor's Awards. The Champagne and Chocolate Preview begins at 7:30pm (Event sponsored by Quilting Treasures ofRhode Island; chocolate sponsored by Lake Champlain Chocolates ofBurlington). Preview tickets are $12. The appraisal service for antique quilts is available Saturday from 9am to 5pm. The exhibits and Merchants Mall are open to the public Friday and Saturday from 9am to 6pm; Sunday from 9am to 3pm. Daily admission is $12, seniors $10, children under 14 free.

Highlights include: Fabled Fibers: Art Quilt Enchantments in which fifty members of the quilt art community offer a visual feast of their favorite childhood fairy tale fantasies. The whimsical quilts illustrate fairy tales, folk stories, and fables. All proceeds from the exhibit will benefit Operation Kids Comfort, a nationally recognized award-winning program that provides comfort quilts to America's littlest heroes, the children of our service men and women. Hard Times, Fine Quilts features seventy antique quilts from the 1920's through the early 1940's. Just over fifty will come from a private collection, the others from documentation days or recent appraisals. For the Love of Fabric is a retrospective of the work of Ann Bird, noted Canadian quilt artist. Her quilts reveal her passion for "color and pattern and occasionally the wild, the zany or the whimsical." Another special exhibit features quilts by quilt historian and Quilter's Hall of Fame inductee, Florence Peto. Each year the Festival recognizes the work of a Vermont Guild. This year, the Bennington Quilters Guild exhibits forty quilts from guild members.

The Festival was founded in 1977 as a one-day show of old and new quilts as a part ofNorthfield's annual Labor Day weekend celebration. From its inception, the Festival has depended on private owners of quilts and loans from the collections of historical societies and museums. It has expanded its offerings and is now a three-day event. The Festival also operates Vermont Quiltsearch, which documents antiqueVermont quilts and their makers. The Festival's goals are to bring the best quilts and quilt makers in the world to New England and to preserve a record of this region's artistic and cultural heritage.

For information about the Vermont Quilt Festival, visit www.vqf.org or email info@vqf.org

SOURCE The Vermont Quilt Festival