Home Sewn: New exhibit features history through crafts

Do you have cherished home-sewn items crafted by your great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, or relative? Such objects, passed down through generations, connect you to memories of the crafter and to history. They call to mind the fashion and household trends unique to their time period.  

The Northwest Montana History Museum’s new exhibit Home Sewn: Thread, Cloth, Needles, and Yarn showcases a variety of crafts: sewing, crocheting, knitting, embroidery, quilting, and needlepoint. Many of the articles on display were handed down through families and then gifted to the museum.  

Visitors will see an extensive variety of hand-sewn articles representing the skill of the crafter. Featured pieces include a 1910 wedding gown, 1950s children’s clothing and practical items such as 1950s embroidered kitchen towels and an 1897 log cabin silk quilt.  

Enhancing the exhibit is an 1895 Montgomery Ward cabinet model treadle sewing machine. This machine is unique in that the back of the cabinet bears vent holes in the shape of two hearts to provide ventilation — something a machine with open cast iron supports did not need.   

A display showing a child’s bedroom, replete with a brass headboard and embroidered quilt, features a handmade, braided rug. A doll’s bed with a quilt and a display case filled with handmade children’s clothing and doll clothes completes the room. 

The Northwest Montana History Museum is located at 124 Second Ave. E., Kalispell. Museum hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. For more information call 756-8381 or visit nwmthistory.org. 

    A 1910 wedding gown featured in Home Sewn: Thread, Cloth, Needles, and Yarn, a new exhibit at the Northwest Montana History Museum. (Courtesy photo)