I am happy to report that this year’s 21st Annual Quilt Show was another terrific success. This year we had over 70 quilts, wall hangings, and other items of fabric art on display - a new record! We are very thankful to the Quilt Show committee (Wanda Cacciatore, Mildred Bridgeland, and Jan Emmons) for their efforts in running the show, and to the MANY volunteers who helped everything else run smoothly. I am also very grateful to our staff, who worked so diligently to get everything ready in time. Thank you all!

In another post soon, I’ll be introducing our new Volunteer Coordinator, Kira, who actually started the week before our Quilt Show. Talk about throwing her right into the thick of things! She has jumped right in and taken everything in stride, and has already taken on some new projects. If you haven’t met her yet, please stop in sometime and get to know her.

Below is a link to some pictures of the Quilt Show, from check-in on Wednesday, July 9th, to the completion of the show, on Sunday, July 13th. Just click the picture below to see the entire album.

Greetings! We started this new website and blog, as a way to keep the public up to date on some of the "happenings" at the Byron Museum. In these pages, our staff, board members, and volunteers, will occasionally post updates on what is going on. We hope you will find something interesting within these pages, or learn something new. We welcome you to visit the museum (hey, it’s free!) to participate in one of our programs, a scavenger hunt, or just to get to know the Byron area.

In the past few weeks we have been busy preparing for our 21st Annual Quilt Show, which will be accepting entries on Wednesday, July 9th. The Show will be open to the public July 11 -13 during ByronFest, and is always a fun few days. Last year, we had 65 entries in the Quilt Show, mostly quilts, though there were quite a few wall hangings and wearable art items as well. 

After the Quilt Show is over, we’ll have to say goodbye to our World War II Posters exhibit, which has been with us since May 30. We’ll take down all of the posters, newspapers, and all of the local oral history excerpts, and send the posters back to their owners (some came from the Illinois Association of Museums (IAM) and some from a local private collector.)

Then, it’ll be a big rush of packing things, moving things around, and preparing for the demolition of several interior walls, which will probably take place in about 1 month. We’re very concerned with properly protecting the museum’s collection from the inevitable dust from the construction, so that’ll be a big project! We’re very excited, though, to get these walls out.

The museum will be a much more inviting, welcome place to visit after this work is complete. To top it off, we’ll also have a wide open space in which to put the Smithsonian traveling exhibit, Between Fences, when it comes to Byron in late November. Maybe we will see some of you at the Quilt Show!