CLEVELAND, Tenn. — Tennessee’s newest tourism tool is an old staple.
Colorfully painted quilt patterns are popping up on shop and barn walls as more locations join the Appalachian Quilt Trail. And yes, it is a trail, traveling along about 300 miles of East Tennessee roads, according to the trail’s Web site.
Like the trail, quilt shows grow more popular, too. Stitches in Time, the annual quilt show of the Museum Center at Five Points, opens this weekend.
It’s one of the most popular exhibits each year and draws people from across the Southeast, Executive Director Lisa Simpson Lutts said. Last year’s show attracted a record 1,422 visitors. In this year’s exhibit, more than 70 contemporary and antique quilts from the region will be on display.
Later this summer, the annual quilt show at the McMinn County Living Heritage Museum from Sept. 4 to Oct. 29 has grown into a National Heritage Quilt Show event.
“Quilts are something we can all identify with,” said Elizabeth Carriger, curator of collections at the Museum Center at Five Points. “They are bright and colorful, and they speak of home.”
The Quilt Trail began in 2004 with the Clinch-Powell Resource Conservation and Development Council in upper East Tennessee’s Smoky Mountain counties. It has spread over much of East and Middle Tennessee.
Brochures guide travelers to buildings or structures bearing the big, brightly painted squares that mark stops on the quilt trail, from barns to antique shops to boutiques.
Downtown Cleveland’s Red Ribbon gift shop, owned and operated by Flavis and Nancy Casson, was one of the latest additions to the trail in 2009.
ON THE WEBLearn more about the Appalachian Quilt Trail at www.vacationaqt.comIF YOU GOWhat: Annual Stitches in Time quilt showWhen: Tuesday-Saturday through March 13.Where: Museum Center at Five Points, 200 Inman St. E., Cleveland, Tenn.Information: 423-339-5745 or www.museumcenter.org
Mrs. Casson said there are plans for more AQT quilt patterns in Southeast Tennessee.
The Allied Arts Council of the Cleveland/Bradley Chamber of Commerce wants to enlist eight schools to paint quilt squares for the county’s century farms, she said. Century farms are those that have been documented through the state as being in the same family for more than 100 years.
The deadline for the AQT’s 2010 brochure is already past. But the Museum Center at Five Points plans to become an official stop, too.
“It will be one more way to bring heritage tourists to Bradley County,” Ms. Lutts said.