Sewing With Nancy

Get ready to be amazed to learn about a museum dedicated to quilting and the history of quilts. Please welcome my guest, Carolyn Ducey, who joins us from the International Quilt Study Center and Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska. Carolyn joins us today via Skype. Welcome to Sewing with Nancy, Carolyn. Thank you so much for having me, Nancy. I'm so impressed with this museum. I was there shortly after it opened in the late '90s and haven't been there since. So it's on my list to go. But please give our viewers an overview of how the museum started and how vast your collection is. Well, it's such an exciting place to be. We were founded in 1997 with a gift of about a thousand quilts from Robert and Ardis James's collection. The Jameses were native Nebraskans who lived in New York and were looking for a home for an amazing study collection that they put together. So at the same time that we acquired the collection and began our museum, we also established a study center so students can come from around the world to study and research quilts from our historic collection to brand new quilts being made today. Since 1997, we've grown rapidly, and in 2008, opened our beautiful new museum with the support of the Jameses and many of our Nebraska quilt lovers. Our collection has continued to grow. We're at about 4,500 quilts now from 50 different countries. And, in addition to opening our museum in 2008, this year we are expanded already and have doubled our exhibition space and our storage space. My, my. In such a short time you've really grown, and you have about 12 to 15 exhibits a year. You're one of the curators. Right. And the exhibits, I know, have a theme to them and interesting themes. Not only just domestic quilts, but international and quilts from different tribes and indigenous peoples. Right. I think the opening exhibit for our new space really is a terrific way of understanding and learning about our entire collection. The exhibition is called "Getting to Know You." For those who can't come to Lincoln, it's available online. And it shows quilts from an entire depth and breadth of our collection. So not just fabulous American quilts and European quilts, which we're familiar with, but some new discoveries we've made in international quilting, quilts from many different cultures, the Amish, Native Americans, even Korean pojagi and Japanese patchwork. And you keep-- There are maybe a thousand quilts on display, let's say. I'm using that as an example, maybe less. But the remaining of the quilts are kept under perfect storage. We have wonderful storage. We actually are only able to show about a hundred quilts at a time in the museum. Oh, okay. Sorry. Like many places, the bulk of our collection is in storage. But we use methods of storing the quilts that will really ensure that they're going to last for as long as they possibly can and they are things that you can really do at home. We use primarily box storage, so we're folding our quilts. But once a year or once every two years, we refold every quilt in the collection, and that's really important so that you don't have creases occur and cause breaking of fibers along those creases. You want to watch your temperature and humidity, so keeping the quilts on the same floors you live on is much better than a basement or an attic. And then, also, being aware of light levels, even for your fabric stash. If you've got that on shelves where light is hitting it, you're going to have a stripe of fading along one edge of your fabric. So it's important to maintain as low level of light as you can. And even to put things away and really keep them from light altogether is really our best aim. So not only in the largest quilt collection under private ownership, but also for our own quilt collection, whether we have three or four quilts, we can follow your guidance, Carolyn. Absolutely. Most of our textiles tend to be cotton, silk, wool. Those are proteins and animal fibers that really are like living, breathing things still. They need a lot of attention. They need to be looked at regularly and cared for regularly. Well, great advice from a curator of textiles. I'm so glad that you could join us and tell us about the International Quilt Study Center and Museum, and rest assured, I'm going to be back to see this. I hope so. Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much, Nancy. You're very welcome. And you at home, watching at home or online, thank you for being with us during this first program of our series on "Simple to Chic T-shirt Makeovers." Eileen Roche will be back next week with our second part of that program, and you're going to learn many more ideas. You can rewatch this program or many seasons of Sewing With Nancy online at NancyZieman.com. You can also connect with us on social media platforms. So be sure and do that. And then, if you want more information about the Nancy's Corner guest, you can rewatch my interview with Carolyn. You can also do that online, as well.

As I like to end each program

Thank you for joining me. Bye for now.