Winnelle Horne of Chiefland can remember as a small child playing under the quilt her mother was making. She declared, “I ain’t never going to do that.”
The girl who played under the quilt grew up and made many quilts. Two new ones are growing piece by piece right now. She even lives in a quilt museum. So much for never going to do that.
Horne is the resident director and spiritual Godmother of the Levy County Quilt Museum located south of Chiefland off Alternate US 27. It is the only quilt museum in the state of Florida.
Wide porches wrap around two sides of the house. Comfortable rocking chairs are abundant. Birdhouses and feeders hang from the porch roof. Outside walls are line with framed quilt squares. No two are the same. Is there a limit to quilt designs?
Apparently not.
Step through the front door of the museum and enter a large, light-filled room. Hand-stitched quilts are draped on racks. Tables by the door have smaller pieces like chair throws and table coverings along with crafts. All are for sale. A small section of the room holds Levy County memorabilia.
The soaring walls tell their own history. Quilt patterns, some made with appliqué, others chain-stitched, are mounted works of art, fresh and timeless, a testimony to amazing creativity.
Alice Mae Hare of Chiefland, for example, found inspiration in a black shoe. A founding member of Log Cabin Quilters, she designed a quilt using the outline of a black high-heeled shoe filled with flowers.
Members of Log Cabin Quilters meet every Thursday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the museum. As they arrive, Horne hugs each one.
On the left is the quilting room, a busy place on Thursdays. Two or three women will work on the same quilt. Like knitters, their hands move seemingly independently, stitching away while they talk.
“We have three rules,” Horne says. “We don’t talk about religion, we don’t talk about politics and we don’t gossip.”
“That’s why it is so quiet in here, ” quipped Hare and everyone laughs.
Finished quilts are for sale at the museum, averaging $300 to $400 for a hand-stitched quilt. Proceeds pay museum bills.
The oldest club member is Goldie McHenry of Chiefland, age 92.
“My mother was a quilter before me,” McHenry says. “We made quilts to keep warm.”
Horne started the Log Cabin Quilters in 1983 with nine members. In the beginning they met in people’s homes. The first quilt show was in Fanning Springs. Quilts for sale were hung on clothesline strung between trees.
Quilting is a social activity, a chance to try out dreams in fabric and in life. Stitching together in the early 1980s, they dreamed of a small log cabin quilt museum, a place where people could become acquainted with quilts and the club could meet.
When founding member Mary Brookins died of a brain tumor in 1988 her husband Thomas brought Horne $400 of her insurance money and said do what you want with it.
That became their museum seed money. The quilters found they could multi-task – make quilts for sale and whip up chicken and dumpling dinners for sale, do bake sales, hold garage sales, anything for the building fund.
Along the way, the little log cabin became a big log house.
“I’m a believer in my Lord,” Horne said. “One morning about 3 a.m. the Lord said you are to build a 50×100 log house with porches all around it off a main highway. I thought ‘whoa’, where is that going to be?”
Off U.S. 27, right where it is today, complete with those wraparound porches. The Levy County Quilt Museum, opened in 2000, sits on two acres leased for 99 years at no charge from Thomas Brookins, Mary’s husband.
No state or federal money was used to build the museum. Much of the labor to build and maintain the building and grounds was, and still is, donated. The museum is a non-profit organization and yes, everything was paid up front as they went along. They have no debt.
“It has just been a wonderful project for us,” Horne said. “I often said ‘Lord, are we ever going to do it?’ but you know I still get a thrill coming up that rise and seeing the building. To me it is still hard to believe.”
There is no admission charge to visit the museum but Horne would be pleased if you sign the guest book just inside the front door.
Visitors have come to the Levy County Quilt Museum from all over the world.
If You Go
Levy County Quilt Museum, 11050 N.W. 10th Avenue, Chiefland, FL
Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day
Phone: (352) 493-2801
Upcoming: 23rd Annual Quilt Show Nov. 24 thru Dec. 3 at the Quilt Museum from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. On Saturday, Dec. 2 there will be a chicken & dumpling dinner and bluegrass gospel music. Sunday, Dec. 3 is a quilt drawing.
Reprinted with permission from The Observer. Photos © 2006 Lucy Beebe Tobias. Lucy is a freelance writer, photographer and artist living in Ocala, Florida