EXHIBIT | 1812-Style Quilts

By Rebecca Rafferty @rsrafferty

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The Webster Museum (18 Lapham Park, Webster) is currently showing an exhibit featuring 26 newly made quilts that are true to 1812 period quilting patterns, fabrics, and colors. Accompanying each quilt are Great Lakes Seaway Trail "storyteller" interpretive cards, which share factual history represented by the quilt, or an imagined tale of a family sending a loved one off to war. The quilts come from the Great Lakes Seaway Trail War of 1812 Traveling Exhibit, which will tour the United States and Canada through 2014.

Much of the War of 1812 was fought along a strategic shoreline, now The Great Lakes Seaway Trail, which follows the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, Niagara River, and Lake Erie in New York and Pennsylvania. This exhibit includes 20 American-made "cot-to-coffin" quilts from 11 states and six Canadian-made quilts from three provinces. Among the works in the exhibit is a quilt with blocks hand-dyed with berries, tea, and coffee, and another with more than 5,000 pieces.

The exhibit will be open to the public through January 20, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays noon-4 p.m., or by appointment. Admission is free, but donations are accepted. For more information or to arrange a tour, call 585-265-3308 or visit webstermuseum.org. For more details on traveling the Great Lakes Seaway Trail byway, visit seawaytrail.com.

If you're a quilter, consider entering your work that showcases a favorite driving destination for the Great Lakes Seaway Trail's Beauty of the Byways Quilt Show taking place this March. For details, visit seawaytrail.com/quilting. — BY REBECCA RAFFERTY

Photo courtesy Brian P. Whattam