When one thinks of quilts, it's easy to conjure up images of your great-grandmother's crazy quilt, made up of scraps of Uncle Tim's old shirts, cousin Jane's 1982 prom dress and whatever else she could piece together to make a practical heat bed retaining cover.
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The annual Belleville Area Museum's quilt show, "Patches and Patterns: A Celebration of Quilts," will leave any preconceived idea of the art of quilting in, well, pieces.
"The crazy quilt actually is a reflection of a tile mosaic," Velia Lauerman of the Western Wayne Quilt Guild said.
Not only is the stunning piecework visually aesthetic, great grandma knew how to keep her family warm at night.
"The stitching actually forms a thermal barrier, the air pockets are like insulation," she said.
"They're called seed or Methodist quilts and the "seed" traps in the warmth."
But the crazy quilt is merely one style in an art form that incorporates many mediums.
The museum has quilts of virtually every theme, every style and every color.
While it may seem the quilts that are highlighted with family photos are a new advancement in the art form, they have been around for over a century.
The quilts with family photos printed onto the fabric are called memory quilts.
"A lot of people call pre- printed material cheating but they've been around as long as there's been photo reproduction."
Lauerman added they used to take photos of the deceased and put them on quilts.
Baby boomers may remember their mothers or grandmothers going to the old Woolworth's or other five and dimes for iron on transfers used as a template to embroider over.
"Embroidery has more stitches than a quilt," Lauerman said.
"Quilting is just a running stitch. I remember doing a hem, it's a lot like that."
One visit to the museum's quilt show will open your eyes to the endless themes quilt artisans create.
Karen Bredscheider's historical pieces memorialize the USS Maine, a U.S. Navy battleship blown up fueling the United States' entry into the Spanish- American War.
Her quilt illustrating the proud history of the United States Marine Corps is a literal timeline of that branch of the armed forces glorious past and present.
Sumpter Township's own Karen Mickens' Oriental Fans uses the Chinese folding fan a geometric motif.
Judy Thornton's "Dusk" utilizes batik and an incredible utilization of the color spectrum to create her outdoor themed pieces.
"This piece is just wonderful. I can't imagine the work that went into it," museum visitor Janet Koch said.
"I like the batik for the subtlety of color."
When you go to the quilt show, lose any preconceived ideas of quilts or quilters behind.
Quilters are not just gray haired ladies stretching the family's old clothes into practical bed covers.
In fact, they're not even all ladies.
"We do have a quilts done by a man," museum director Diane Wilson said.
"Donald Jones knocked on his neighbor, Viola Wittershein's door, and asked to learn how to quilt."
His Star Wars and motorcycle quilts are on display and have a definite male quality to the style of design.
On Saturday, Wilson estimates over 50 people came to view the exhibit during the museum's noon to 4 p.m. hours.
So why are some artisans drawn to the medium of quilting?
"It's in the genes, it's hereditary," Lauerman, Roxann Baker and Kathy Stolaruk all agreed with smiles.
The quilt show runs through the month of March at the museum, 405 Main St. in downtown Belleville.
The Belleville Area Museum first opened at Old Quirk School in 1989, featuring small-scale replicas of historical buildings which once stood in Belleville, Sumpter, and Van Buren Townships. With visitors regularly promenading its "Main Street", the Museum became a popular attraction.
In 1995, with Quirk School slated for demolition, Van Buren Township offered the use of its Old Township Hall on Belleville's Main Street as the new site of the Museum. The Old Township Hall was constructed in 1875 and is a State of Michigan Registered Historic Site.
Van Buren Township undertook a major restoration of the Old Town Hall and in cooperation with the City of Belleville agreed to an arrangement to jointly fund the Museum program.
The Belleville Area Museum preserves and promotes the history of the community through the preservation and exhibit of historical artifacts and the presentation of historical programs and events.
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