Skidompha Public Library will be filled with the quilts of quilt maker/fiber artist Janet B. Elwin in March and April. Little Quilts will be displayed in the Carey Gallery with a collection of small pieces made from neckties and Janet's button collection. A small vintage fabric wall hanging called “At The Kitchen Sink,” and an Easter quilt.

Big Quilts will be on exhibit in the Atrium and will feature several children's quilts, a sailboat quilt, “Dark Harbor Boat Races, Penobscot Bay, Maine,” and a jeans/plaid shirt quilts, “There's Nothing Like Broken In Jeans.”

Elwin, a quilter since 1973, started out making bed quilts of traditional designs, but soon asked herself “what if” and began creating bed quilts, and wall hangings, of her own design.

She has traveled the world as teacher and lecturer in quilting techniques in adult education programs, in colleges, quilting guilds and seminars in the U.S. and from Japan to Israel.

Elwin has been happily at home in Walpole, still creating quilts, asking “what if” and coming up with new and creative quilts and wall hangings. She also donates her colorful pillowcases for patients at the Barbara Bush Children's Cancer Center in Portland. Pillowcases are for sale at the Miles Thrift Shop in Damariscotta, the proceeds of which go to Miles Memorial Hospital.

Elwin designed The Damariscotta River Quilt, which raised $22,000 for the Damariscotta River Association in1992. In 1998, she designed and made a quilt to help raise funds for the rebuilding of Skidompha. It raised over $3,000 toward that effort.

Janet Elwin was one of the founders of the New England Quilters Guild and initiated the Guild's goal of establishing a quilt museum. The New England Quilt Museum opened in Lowell, Mass. in 1987. Elwin also chaired a quilt exposition, “Images I,” which raised over $21,000 for the Museum.

This very creative woman has written four books, “Hexagon Magic,” “Creative Triangles for Quilters,” “Ties – Ties – Ties” and “Love To Quilt.”

In 1998 Elwin won the Honor's Award for her outstanding work in quilting and her leadership role in forming the Guild and the Museum.