Quilt Trails Project

Small Town Main Street 2010 Awards

1st Place Promotion – Burnsville for Quilt Trails of Western North Carolina
The Burnsville Quilt Trail is the largest concentration of quilt blocks with many located in downtown Burnsville. Although not an original concept the project’s director, Barbara Webster put an original spin on the project when they received a $5,000 grant from Handmade in America to the Toe River Arts Council. Each painted quilt block tells the story of the family, the land or the building where it resides. The name of the block helps trigger the story such as Girl’s Favorite is on a downtown children’s clothing shop, The Bard of Avon is on the Parkway Playhouse. Blocks are paid for by the people requesting them and include design, painting and installation as well as a Certificate and a pin of the block. The location gets added to the master driving map and the stories behind the blocks are published in Tour Guides sold at the downtown Quilt Trails Gift Shop. Businesses that have a block on their building are allowed to exclusively sell pins attached to a card telling the story of the quilt block.

On the first Quilt Block Tour 15 people spent $3000 downtown with local businesses in a few hours.

Painting the blocks, writing the stories, photographing and installing the blocks are almost entirely a volunteer effort and have involved the local high school students in building and painting the blocks giving them a sense of ownership.

Local developer Mountain Lifestyle Communities believed the project was so important that they gave $50,000 to Quilt Trails to pay the salary of the Executive Director for two years and became the corporate underwriter for the project.

There was even an article in The Wall Street Journal about the quilt trails, stating, “One of the densest and most creative examples is the Quilt Trails of Western North Carolina”.

As well as bringing thousands of tourists into the community to date: 12 ongoing jobs have been created because of this project, the entire town looks prettier and a positive shift in the community’s self-esteem has occurred.

This project clearly incorporates three of the Main Street 4-point approach: design, economic restructuring and promotion.

Congratulations to Burnsville and Barbara Webster for Best Promotion: Quilt Trails of Western North Carolina


Quilt Trails January eNEWS
New Blocks Up
We installed Cathedral Windows on Church Rd. off Shoal Creek Road on Friday, January 15. This is the most complex block we have ever tackled. It was painted to match a quilt made by Ramona Maximillians’s mother. We photographed the quilt, blew it up to the size the block was going to be and used that as the pattern for the block. Katie Webster started the complex paint job, and it was completed by Carolyn Bareford. The block was painted from 5 different pieces of fabric. This block is worth a trip to see. And it is most appropriate for its site as it hangs on the former Shoal Creek Baptist church which is now the private residence of Xavier and Ramona Maximillian. Go out Shoal Creek Rd. and turn right onto Church Road. You will see the church at the top of the hill. Cathedral Windows quilts are popular among many quilters in this area.

On the same day we installed Firefighter on the Deke residence on Byrd Mtn. Estate Rd., off Byrd Branch Rd. which is off Jack’s Creek Rd. This block honors Richard Deke who served as a Captain in the City of Miami’s Fire Department. He spent his summers at their cabin in Burnsville.

And the THIRD block we installed that day was Hard Times – the first block to go up in the Cane Creek Community outside of Bakersville. Pass the Dellinger Mill on Cane Creek Rd. and keep going a few more miles. The block is on a small house on the corner of Polly Hollow on the left. This is a really beautiful block which owner, David Goodnight, says tells his story perfectly!

Also out the door this month was Bluebonnet Beauty - to Lorne Baine.

I’d like to thank Wade Whitson and Jeff Phillips for their unflagging support of Quilt Trails and their persistent good humor. Wade, who drives the bucket truck, is a great storyteller, and Jeff makes any job look easy, though I know it isn’t. These two gentlemen have helped to hang the majority of the over 140 quilt blocks now up.

Shhh! It’s a secret party for ladies only.
On Thursday, February 11, from 5-7pm we are going to have a Paint Your Undies party at the Paint Studio. Bring your white undies, including t-shirts, and have fun painting them (or maybe a pair of boxer shorts or socks for your valentine). Refreshments will be provided by David’s Ltd. and Jill’s Hairport. It will cost $10 and half the funds will go to a fund to help subsidize the cost of quilt blocks for those who want a block but can’t afford one, and the other half will be sent to Oxfam to help those in Haiti.
This will be a fun way to beat the winter blahs and have some girl fun (and maybe make an unusual Valentine’s gift). Bring your daughter, mother, sister, best friend, or granddaughter. Sign up at Quilt Trails Gift Shop (in the Burnsville Chamber of Commerce) or by email: info@quilttrailswnc.org. Put Paint Your in the subject line. Pay at the door. If it turns out to be wildly popular, we’ll add a second date. We'd like to build this fund and also help people in Haiti, so please try to come.

June Road Rally
Mark your calendars now for our June 26 Road Rally. The Rally will end with a Bar-BQ at The Cove at Celo Mountain, sponsored by Mountain Lifestyle Communities. Rally will start at Mountain Heritage High School. Prizes will be items made by local artists. It will cost $35 to participate. Save $10 by registering online by June 15.

Sundial Update
Jeff Phillips and I spent Friday afternoon drilling holes in the MDO signboard that will become the sundial and the metal frame it is going to be attached to (which was built by Altec). Well, Jeff did the drilling while I sat on the board to keep it in place. We are going to start painting the Sundial as soon as this weekend. The Sundial has at least 21 colors and will take a while to paint. If you’d like to participate, you will need to call our Paint Captain, Cheryl Hughes, to learn when we will be working on it. You can reach Cheryl at 688-3881 in Green Mountain. Feel free to come watch if you don’t want to paint but have an interest in seeing this historic undertaking unfold. Our Paint Studio is at 414 E. Main St., across from Dr. Aldridge’s Eye Institute in Burnsville. It’s warm in the studio!

Looking for a Seamstress
We are looking for a seamstress (what is the male word for someone who sews?? Seamster?) who would like to make our cute Christmas ornaments for us. This is actually a year-round paying venture. We will pay by the piece and will supply the printed fabric. We will show you how to put them together. It requires a sewing machine, the ability to sew a straight line, and the use of a glue stick and wavy blade rotary cutter. If you’d like to pick up some extra money and become our ornament person, please call 828-682-7331.

Winter Gift Shop Hours
The Gift Shop will be open Tuesday-Friday 10-4 during the winter. Gift Shop is located in the Burnsville Chamber of Commerce, directly across the street from David’s Ltd.

Calendars still available
We know the weather has kept a lot of folks in who wanted a calendar. We still have some left so come by the Gift Shop to get one. They would make a great Valentine’s gift. The photos are wonderful and the calendar has nice big squares so you can write appointments and reminders on them. Besides, we think they will be collector's items. Remember to be out there shooting pictures NOW for next year's calendar. We want pictures that illustrate every month. And there is STILL a lot of snow on the ground here and there.

Chocolate Bars available at the Gift Shop.
We have the perfect present for your Valentine…or just to help you cope with the winter blahs. Our new chocolate bars are just the ticket. The .7 oz. of dark chocolate is not only delicious, it also has quilt blocks on it! Plus the wrapper features Dick Kennedy’s photo of the barn at the corner of George’s Fork Rd. and Hwy 19. Come buy a fistful to give to your friends on Valentine’s Day to let them know you’re sweet on them! You’ll be helping us out too.

Gift Shop Jury
The next jury for the Gift Shop will be Tuesday, March 16. If you have an item that features our quilt blocks and are interested in having us sell it in the Gift Shop, please get your best representation of the item to us with your name, address, phone number, email and price by March 12. Deliver it/them to the Gift Shop. Remember the Gift Shop is CLOSED on Mondays and Saturdays. At our last jury we added cross stitch squares of the quilt blocks which can be used in a variety of ways plus patterns for making same. Come to the Gift Shop to see the shirt featuring one of the cross stitch squares. It may give you some ideas for creating your own shirt (it was super easy).

Meet Violet Metcalf
Violet came to us last year through the NC Summer Jobs program and made herself so indispensible to us that we made arrangements to keep her through Mayland’s Work Study program. Violet is co-manager of the Gift Shop and also is my Girl Friday, helping me out with all the invisible, behind-the-scenes computer work that it takes to make Quilt Trails happen. Violet has helped paint, run errands, collected data, done internet searches, updated spreadsheets, worked with me on event planning and helps keep track of inventory, just to name a few things. She never complains, is always eager to do whatever I ask of her and always does a great job of whatever it is.

Violet is studying Office Systems Technology at Mayland but her real love lies in Interior Design. She is also starting to do Web Design for people. Her design skills are apparent in the way merchandise is displayed in the gift shop. She has a knack for keeping the place looking fresh and new.

Violet is the first person in her family on either side to go to college and the first grandchild on either side to graduate from High School (she graduated from Mtn. Heritage High School in 2008). We are really thrilled to have this talented and dedicated student as part of our staff. Her contributions to the Quilt Trails project are enormous. Please say hello to Violet next time you see her in the Gift Shop and give her an Atta Girl!

Want to Volunteer?
If you’d like to help out this year, we can always use help at events. This year’s events (so far) include our Paint Your Undies Party on February 11, our Road Rally on June 26, the Mt. Mitchell Craft Fair August 6 and 7, the Bakersville Creek Walk in September, and a second Road Rally on November 6. We also need writers, photographers, painters, and computer geeks. If you know how to write code for Access, we’d love to hear from you. If you are a good Promotions person, we could use your expertise. If you like behind-the-scenes work, there is plenty of that as well.

Have an idea, suggestion or complaint? Call us at 828-682-7331 or write us at Quilt Trails, PO Box 986, Burnsville, NC 28714. Visit our website: http//www.quilttrailswnc.org to order tour guides, maps and calendars, or to download a quilt block application form. Email us at info@quilttrailswnc.org.

As always, thank you to Mountain Lifestyle Communities, our corporate underwriter, who help make the Quilt Trails program possible.



Have a suggestion? You can call one of our Board Members, or our Executive Director.
Board members:
Norm Rabek nrabek@verizon.net 828-675-5413
Shirley Hise shise@mitchell-county.com 828-765-9033
Jake Blood yanceyedc@gmail.com 828-682-7722
Sue Ledford mtnprosue@gmail.com828-778-8111
LouAnn Morehouse info@avercountyartscouncil.org 828-898-4292
Barbara Tester barbara.tester@carolinafirst.com 828-682-7744
Barbara Webster, Ex. Dir. info@quilttrailswnc.org828-682-7331

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This page was last updated on Monday, 08 February 2010 04:49 PM