The International Quilt Study Center and Museum will start the summer season with exhibitions that highlight diverse quilting traditions.

The new displays include “Regarding Nebraska,” which showcases designs that capture the state’s beauty, and “Off the Grid: The Bill Volckening Collection,” an exploration of scrap quilts made during the 1970s quilting revival.

Both exhibitions will be open for a First Friday celebration from 4 to 7 p.m. June 2. The museum will offer free admission during the event.

The First Friday celebration will include a 5:30 p.m. gallery tour by Christine Martens, guest curator for “Scraped Quilts: Quilt and Patchwork Traditions of Central Asia.” Other activities include a Nebraska Wildflower Week celebration featuring the center’s garden.

“Regarding Nebraska,” curated by Elizabeth Ingraham, continues the quilt museum’s celebration of the Nebraska Sesquicentennial. Ingraham, associate professor of art and art history, traveled 9,000 miles throughout the state to create the pieces in the installation. She took photographs, made sketches and wrote reflections, all of which inspired the patchwork and quilted interpretations.

“With image and stitch I communicate the beauty and diversity of Nebraska, revealed over time and across distance,” Ingraham said. “I want to attend to what is unseen as well as what is visible and value what is lost as well as what persists.”

Elizabeth Ingraham

Ingraham will present “Behind the Stitches: The Fabric of Nebraska,” a gallery reading and special talk, at 11 a.m. on June 3. This in-gallery exclusive will be available free with admission.

“Off the Grid: The Bill Volckening Collection” opened May 26. Volckening is an avid collector of post-1950s quilts. This exhibition features bright and off-beat examples from the 1970s. These polyester scrap quilts have often been ignored by other collectors, which makes the collection all the more unique.

Throughout the exhibition, viewers will learn what drew Volckening to each of the quilts on display.

“The fabrics in the first 1970s quilt I bought reminded me of my childhood, especially the summers spent at the community pool,” Volckening said. “As I accumulated more, many made from polyester double knit, the critics had plenty to say… I didn’t care. I was enthralled.”

Volckening will give a free public lecture Aug. 4.

For more information on these and other current and upcoming exhibits at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum, click here.