On Sunday the public will get its first chance to explore the exhibitions at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum, a newly completed building on East Campus.
The center will be open from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., with free admission.
Visitors can choose to discover the museum on their own or get an audio tour for $2.
They can also choose whether to head straight up to the exhibit hall or stay downstairs and explore something called the "virtual gallery."
The virtual gallery is a room that uses Web-based technology to help visitors interact with a virtual time line of quilting history, design their own quilt pattern and quilt collection online. The gallery also allows guests to view any quilt in the database, full-sized or larger, on a projection screen on the wall.
Other features of the gallery include two recording booths, where people can record quilt stories, which will be digitally taped and catalogued in the center's archive.
"This is much about letting people touch it, feel it and be part of it. … Their story becomes a very important part of the collection here," said Maureen Ose, communications coordinator for the center. "It will really give people a chance to feel part of the museum."
Visitors can then head up the brightly lit staircase to the exhibition hall.
The first exhibitions on display in the new building are "Quilts in Common" and "Nancy Crow: Cloth, Culture, Context."
"Quilts in Common" features collections of groups of three quilts that have one similar element. For example, one group contains an Amish quilt, a French quilt and a contemporary quilt, each using colored squares prominently. Along with the trio is a painting by Josef Albers, which also features a square. The exhibit is meant to show correlation between works of art from across time and countries.
"I think that people will really look at quilts and quilting differently after they see this," Ose said.
The other exhibition will feature quilts by Nancy Crow, including a piece of her design wall, where she lays out plans for her work.
The quilt center also includes "behind-the-scenes" museum features.
It boasts a large photography room where people work on creating high-resolution images of all the quilts in the collection.
Also, researchers can apply for fellowships to study the quilts, or they can apply to study the quilts for a specific academic purpose on an individual basis.
"We take a very open eye to that kind of thing," Ose said.
The center has a large storage room with moveable shelving to stow up to 8,000 quilts.
When a quilt is acquired, it is isolated for two weeks to make sure there are no insects on it before it is added to the rest of the collection.
The workers are especially worried about critters such as moths, silverfish and carpet beetles, which can eat and damage textiles.
For this reason, few people are allowed into the storage room.
"As a matter of safety for our quilts, the fewer people who are in here, the better," said Janet Price, collections manager for the IQSC.
Ose said workers are expecting a crowd for the center's opening.
"We can't wait to see the reaction of visitors to the new museum, the debut exhibitions and the virtual gallery," Ose said. "It is exciting to have such a wonderful place to showcase our collection."
jennagibson@dailynebraskan.com
is a member of the 
