Lowell Textile Museum

A few years ago, I went to Lowell, Mass while on a business trip. I didn’t get to devote as much time as I would have liked to the experience. We didn’t have much time for sightseeing and I was pretty tired from taking a Red Eye. Still, it was great to get a flavor of the place. The quilts that I saw at the New England Quilt Museum were wonderful.

I was thrilled recently to see that the Lowell Textile Museum has put their online catalog in beta out on the web. While I am a sucker for online catalogs, I am more thrilled that more textile and quilt information is being put out as well. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see a quilt catalog that had hundreds and hundreds of quilts ranging from famous quilts to the neighbor next door quilts. The catalog could cover anyone that wants to upload a quilt and just be images and description-a virtual collection. I think it would be a great resource for historians, geneologists, people seeking patterns, artists, everyone, especially as it evolved. I think it would be fantastic. When I win the lottery, this will be my project.

In this catalog, I would like to see a general browse feature. Additionally, a photograph browse, a textile browse etc. would allow people browse through the collection if they just want to get an idea of what the museum owns.

I hope that some of the fabric companies look at these collections, because some of hte fabrics look really interesting. It would be great if The Electric Quilt could partner with the museum to reproduce their fabrics digitally for use with EQ5.

Still, I am thrilled that this new resource is available and I look forward to see more of their collection virtually.

Author: Jaye

Quiltmaker who enjoys writing and frozen chocolate covered bananas.