Two guest passes to the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, MA. 

Begun by an enthusiastic group of local quilters in 1987, the New England Quilt Museum celebrated its 25th Anniversary in 2012. The museum is a landmark in the heart of America's historic textile-producing region, housed in a 19th century former bank building in the heart of lovely downtown Lowell, Massachusetts.

The museum is the only institution in the northeast solely dedicated to the art and craft of quilting, both traditional and contemporary. Through special exhibits, workshops, lectures and a variety of community outreach activities, the non-profit New England Quilt Museum studies, preserves and promotes this very American art form. The Museum Shop carries a wide variety of books, jewelry, fabric, toys and other items of interest to the quilter and non-quilter alike. The Permanent Collection contains antique and contemporary quilts, quilt tops, textile samples and sewing ephemera, portions of which are rotated out of storage and displayed as part of four or more special exhibitions mounted each year.

The museum is also host to the annual Lowell Quilt Festival, a citywide celebration of quilts each August. Partnered with other museums and galleries around Lowell, the Festival features IMAGES,New England's premier judged and juried quilt show.

Upcoming Exhibits:
CHARMED: Every Piece Is Different

The New England Quilt Museum is the only East Coast venue to exhibit this impressive selection of charm quilts from the Pat L. Nickols Collection at the Mingei International Museum in San Diego, California.

Over the last 30 years, Nickols has amassed a wondrous collection of mostly American quilts from various parts of the country. The charm quilts gathered for this exhibition are composed of elaborate geometric patterns in which every piece of fabric is different.  This style of quilt making is attributed to the eastern U.S. in the late 1860s, but enjoyed widespread popularity in the 1870s and 1880s.  

Quilt makers of this era often had collections of fabric left over from dressmaking and would trade with one another in order to gather unique samples. They enjoyed the challenge of constructing a quilt that used all of these different fabrics to create a displayable, as well as useable, object--the Charm Quilt.