Southern Tenant Farmers Museum Quilt Show grows into Quilt Festival, set for March 6

Feb. 25, 2010 -- Two years ago, the Southern Tenant Farmers Museum, 117 Main Street, Tyronza, hosted a small quilt show as a part of the annual celebration of Women’s History Month. That show was so popular that the museum could not contain all of the quilts last year. The museum reached out to the Tyronza community for support and got it in the form of five local churches and the elementary school each hosting a display of quilts.

This year, the show has expanded again, with the assistance and support of the Sunken Lands Regional Chamber of Commerce. On Saturday, March 6, the towns of Tyronza, Marked Tree, Lepanto, and Dyess will each host individual quilt shows in various locations throughout the communities and will include not only quilt displays, but food and crafts as well as lectures and classes.

Dyess will host a display of quilts at the historic Dyess Colony Circle and Administration Building.  Lepanto will feature quilts at the House of Books, next door to the Goldsby Library on 240 Greenwood Street, and possibly at the Painted House (Greenwood and East Oak Streets, Lepanto). Marked Tree will feature quilts in two locations. The Marked Tree Delta Area Museum (308 Frisco Street, Marked Tree) will have a large quilt display, as will the United Methodist Church (304 Frisco Street, Marked Tree) located next door to the museum and near the main business district. The United Methodist Church will also feature a line of crafts for sale and food items.

Tyronza will feature quilts at the Southern Tenant Farmers Museum, the Upper Room Apostolic Church (164 South Main Street, Tyronza), the First Baptist Church (244 South Main Street, Tyronza), the First Pentecostal Church, and the Tyronza Church of Christ (107 School Street, Tyronza). The Upper Room Apostolic Church will host a bake sale in conjunction with the event, and the First Baptist Church will again host their general store and beans and cornbread dinner in the fellowship hall. View the complete schedule of events in Tyronza. The Southern Tenant Farmers Museum website also has a pdf version of the schedule to download or print.

The Tyronza Church of Christ will be the site of three presentations on quilts and quilting. Marjorie Hunter, West Memphis High School teacher and Heritage Studies PhD student at Arkansas State University, will reprise her well-attended lecture, “Codes in the Quilts,” discussing the use of quilts as maps and symbols during the days of the Underground Railroad. Dr. Mike Luster, director of the Arkansas Folklife Program, will present “The Arkansas Sesquicentennial Quilt Project: Lessons Learned in the Last Twenty-Five Years,” based on his experiences with the project. Rachel Reynolds-Luster, co-director of the Coalition for Ozarks Living Traditions (C.O.L.T.) and Heritage Studies PhD student at Arkansas State University, will present “Tell Me Everything You Know: Quilting Circles as a Function of Community Past and Present,” a look at the traditional quilting circle or quilting bee.

Four classes will be offered on a limited enrollment basis and free of charge. The Tyronza Elementary School Library will host two classes. Machine quilter and teacher Marjorie Hunter will again lead her popular class on the early twentieth century yo-yo quilts on Saturday morning in which students will complete several yo-yos. The afternoon session will feature a class on fusible appliqué, in which students will complete a small pillow top. The Southern Tenant Farmers Museum classroom will be the site of two classes for beginning quilters. The morning session will be Hand Piecing for Beginners and the afternoon session will be Hand Quilting for Beginners. Both classes will be instructed by museum staff member Freda Grisham, a fifty-year veteran quilter with a gift for teaching in a manner that makes quilting understandable and enjoyable. Supplies will be furnished for all of the classes, but space is limited and reservations are encouraged.

Maps of the quilt show locations in all four towns will be available at each site. Contact Linda Hinton, assistant director of the Southern Tenant Farmers Museum at (870) 487-2909 for information and to reserve class space. E-mail the museum at stfm@ritternet.com. View a slideshow of last year's events online. The Southern Tenant Farmers Museum is an Arkansas Heritage SITE of Arkansas State University.
 

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