Courtesy of Billings Farm & Museum
Making for beautiful wall art is a juried exhibition of forty colorful quilts made by Windsor County quilters, part of the 29th Annual Quilt Exhibition.
Antique Tractor Day offers a chance to see tractors that date back to the 1930’s-1960’s and learn all about them from their owners.
Aug. 1 & 2 — WOODSTOCK — Billings Farm & Museum will host the 15th Annual Antique Tractor Day on Sunday, Aug. 2, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., featuring both restored and unrestored tractors dating from the 1930s to the 1960s. The narrated tractor parade at 1 p.m. provides a wonderful opportunity to see the machines operating, with interesting and historical background details about each tractor. Tractor-drawn wagon rides will be offered as well as make-it-take-it wooden tractors for children, a toy tractor sandbox, ice cream making, and more.
Coinciding with Tractor Day, Billings Farm will host its 29th annual quilt exhibition from Aug. 1 through Sept. 20, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, featuring quilts made by Windsor County quilters. A special highlight this year is a “feed sack quilt” made entirely of feed sacks collected at the Billings Farm during the 1950s and 1960s. Cynthia Brown Hilliard, whose father Raymond Brown was the farm’s herdsman for decades, grew up on the farm and made the quilt in 2013 from feed sacks that her mother had saved many years ago.
The exhibition also will include quilting activities and demonstrations for every age and skill level, with quilters on hand to discuss their work. Challenge quilts made by the Heart of the Land Quilters’ Guild will also be exhibited. This year’s theme is “Five Seasons of Vermont”–winter, mud, spring, summer and fall. (Yes there is a mud season in Vermont!) A quilt challenge requires specific design and construction rules agreed upon by guild members, with the goal of improving their quilting skills.
For nearly three decades, Billings Farm & Museum has played a significant role promoting and encouraging the quilting tradition in Windsor County. Still considered both a creative and utilitarian household craft, renewed interest in the tradition dovetails with the museum’s mission of celebrating Vermont’s rural heritage. Since 1985, over 270 quilters have submitted more than 1,000 quilts for exhibit at the Farm & Museum.
Admission includes the quilt exhibition, tractor day, operating dairy farm, orientation and farm life exhibits, the restored and furnished 1890 Farm House, plus daily programs and activities.
For more info, call 802-457-2355 or visit www.billingsfarm.org.
