Country Craft Days At Blue Ridge Institute

By Ferrum CollegeMary E. Abshire of Boones Mill with her star pattern quilt which will be one of over 100 antique and modern quilts on display during Blue Ridge Country Crafts Day June 8 [1985] at Ferrum College's Blue Ridge Farm Museum. (Photo by Vaughn Webb.)

Issue: June, 1985

The Blue Ridge Institute at Ferrum College, Ferrum, Virginia will be sponsoring a two day demonstration of traditional craft skills necessary for farmsteading in the 19th and early 20th centuries. There will be many crafts people showing and selling their wares plus old time string bands and contemporary bluegrass artists to entertain you. See vintage agricultural equipment, antique tractors and hit-and-miss engines.

J. Roderick Moore, director of the Blue Ridge Institute, hopes to have 150 or more quilts on display. “Eventually we hope to hold the major fair in the state for colonial crafts,” he added. There will be crafts people from all over who have learned or taught themselves colonial and country crafts. Some of the crafts will include potters, weavers, spinners, blacksmiths, tinsmiths and gunsmiths.

The dates for the show will be June 8 [1985] (10:00 am -5:00 pm) and June 9, [1985] (11:00 am - 5:00 pm). There will be an entrance fee of $2.00 for adults and $1.00 for children and senior citizens.

Earl Thorne, a tinsmith at Old Salem in North Carolina, will be one of the craftspersons participating in the Blue Ridge Country Crafts Day June 8 at Ferrum College's Blue Ridge Farm Museum. (Photo courtesy of Old Salem Restoration, Winston- Salem, North Carolina.)Jousting might bring an image to your mind of medieval times, but jousting is actually considered the oldest continuously held sporting event in the United States. A jousting course is being set up at the Farm Museum, adjacent to the Ferrum campus to hold a jousting tournament during the Country Crafts Days Events. If you've never seen jousting before, this is your chance.

Whether you go for the quilts, the handmade crafts demonstrations, the music, the jousting, or the other things, you can expect an interesting day's outing at the Blue Ridge Institute of Ferrum College.

Mellow Summer Days - Country Craft Days