National Quilt Trail Gathering

Quilt Trail Tour, Aug. 13, Homestead Farm

Many thanks to those who joined us in sunny Greeneville, TN, August 10-13th for the 2016 National Quilt Trail Gathering!  Together we learned a lot and created valuable connections across the country and Canada.  We made new friends and shared our love for the Quilt Trail so that our communities may be made more sustainable.  The website www.nationalQTGathering.com is now updated with notes from the event, pictures, video, and thoughts on the future. To view MORE photos, and videos of the 2016 Gathering we put more on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FollowtheQuiltTrail/

Quilt Trail Tour, Aug. 13, Embree House
Nebraska and Kansas Quilt Trail representatives, Quilt Turning Dinner, Aug. 12
Quilt Turning, Aug. 12th at Still Hollow Farm

 The 2016 Gathering was organized by the Appalachian RC&D Council’s Emily Bidgood and Rachel Wheeler, AmeriCorps VISTA, with support from Donna Sue Groves. The volunteer Greeneville Hosting committee started meeting a year before the event and was instrumental in pulling the community together to make the event welcoming and well organized. Thank you committee for your volunteer efforts!   Many thanks to our speakers, the hoard of volunteers who made the 4-day event possible, and to our sponsors: General Morgan Inn, Tennessee Quilts Shop, Greene County Tourism, Still Hollow Farm, Myers Farm, Premier MotorCoach, and the Tennessee Arts Commission. 

What does the future hold for the National Quilt Trail Gathering?  The first Gathering was held in 2011 in Adam’s County, Ohio (see 2011 Gathering for more information).  During the 2016 Gathering about 10 of us attended an open discussion about the future.  

Donna Sue Groves, the mother of the Quilt Trail movement, made it plain that the power of the Quilt Trail is at a grass roots level.  This allows the movement to develop freely.  Each Trail is different and thus has different needs and goals.  We agreed on need to development and maintain open discussion between Trails to give us all access to the wider Quilt Trail community.
 
*Making use of and promoting  Suzi Parron’s books and map, and Julianne Donofrio’s Pieced Together Documentary crowd sourced map is very important.  Julie has created an interactive google map allowing any Quilt Trail to easily to add themselves to the clothesline that is the American Quilt Trail Movement. with any log on necessary. We tried it and it really is as easy as the click of a button to add your Trail and information to the map. http://www.piecedtogetherdoc.com/map.html
 
*Two Facebook pages are to be created and published.  The first page will be used as a private forum welcome to any and all Quilt Trail organizers to discuss development, maintenance, ideas, keep in touch, etc.  This page will not be open to the public but will be set up so that Quilt Trail organizers can be invited or can “ask” to join in.  The second page will be public and used for the promotion of Trails across the country (we dubbed this the fuzzy kitten page).  Here we can advertise events and show off.   Links to these Facebook book pages will be posted here and at www.nationalQTgathering.com as soon as they are developed.
 
*When is the next National Quilt Trail Gathering?  During  our working group we determined that holding the Gathering yearly isn’t necessary, and we won’t be holding it again in Northeast TN. The spirit of the Gathering is grassroots, community building, and experiencing new places and new stories across North America.  We had our turn here and the next Gathering will be up to you!
 
If you decide you would like to hold it in your community, we would be happy to share any information we have gathered along the way and the www.nationalQTgathering.com and Facebook pages are meant to help faciliate invitations in the future.