Monthly guild meeting
This month, Sheila will share the stories behind the Bayeux and Jersey Occupation Tapestries and how they inspire her own quilting through family history.
Time & Location
Oct 09, 2025, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Corvallis Museum, 411 SW 2nd St, Corvallis, OR 97333, USA
About the event
Quilts & Family History: Stories Woven in Fabric
This month we are excited to welcome Sheila as our speaker. She will share a lecture on the Bayeux Tapestry – a 700-foot embroidered chronicle of William’s conquest of England, believed to have been stitched by English nuns – and the Jersey Occupation Tapestry, created by women of the Channel Islands to tell the story of their WWII experience through needlepoint. These remarkable works remind us that textiles have long been used to document, preserve, and share history, particularly women’s history.
Sheila will pivot from these historic tapestries to reflect on her own family history, including her recent trip exploring her mother’s roots in Jersey, and how personal artifacts and stories – like the tapestries – can inspire quilts. This is a chance to consider how our own family histories, heirlooms, and lived experiences find their way into our quilting practice.
We will also connect this discussion to the Quilt Alliance’s mission: “Document, Preserve, Share” – a reminder of why telling our stories through quilts matters. Whether through written labels, oral histories, or design choices, we as quilters contribute to a living archive of personal and cultural history.
Program Highlights
Lecture & Visuals: Bayeux and Jersey Occupation Tapestries
Personal Storytelling: Sheila’s family history journey and its quilting inspirations
Guild Connection: Reflecting on our own stories, and even the history of the Corvallis Modern Quilt Guild itself
Optional Challenge: Create a quilt inspired by a piece of your own family history – an artifact, story, or tradition – to share at a future meeting
This program invites us to think deeply about why we quilt, the stories we want to tell, and how our work becomes part of the historical record.
Annual Business Meeting
This is also our Annual Business Meeting. Members will vote on the 2026 Board of Directors. All current officers have agreed to continue, with one change: Susan Sage has agreed to serve as Membership Chair, following Joyce Loper’s dedicated service.
Details about our elections will be sent to all members the week before our meeting. If you cannot attend, there will be a link to vote online in advance.