History was on display at the Tom Hardin Farm Center last Saturday.

The Dozier chapter of Beta Sigma Phi sponsored a special quilt exhibit. The designs were thoughtfully elaborate, demonstrating the amount of extensive needlework and care that goes into an artwork that is unique and timeless.

Delores Mount, president of Beta Sigma Phi, had several quilts in the show, including one that won her the ALFA Insurance State Quilting contest in 2004.

"It took me about a year to make," Mount said. "First thing I had to do was find me a pattern. I subscribe to quilting magazines and I found me a pattern I liked. I had lots of scraps so I didn't really have to buy anything to make it."

Mount enjoys quilting, but said it requires patience.

"The thing I like about it is you can take it with you in the car when you go somewhere," she said. "Now I have an daughter and a daughter-in-law who won't quilt, because you need too much patience."

Quilting is an art usually passed down from older generations to the younger. It was that way for LaRue Kelso, president of the Brantley Rural Club.

"Before I was eight years old there was a neighbor who got me, my sister and her daughter together," Kelso recalled. "She said, 'okay girls, ya'll get your needle, thread and thimbles and come on. We're going to teach you how to quilt.' So she let us quilt just how we wanted to. And that's how we started."

Prices ranged from $125 to over $400 for some of the quilts on sale Saturday.

In one corner of the room several antique quilts were on loan to the exhibit. Kelso and Mount said they each have quilts made by their mothers and grandmothers that were passed down through the years. Quilts such as those are usually not for sale at any price.

Ann Holland, a member of the Brantley Rural Club, stated that she could 'share a story' about each quilt on display. Notes were pinned to each quilt, relating the title and history of each piece.

Quilts are unique, said Holland.

"None have the same pattern," she said. Holland has been quilting for two years.

The older quilts are the better ones she said.

"They are so much better done," she said. "They really are. We don't have the material available that they had in the older days."

Holland showed a quilt done by her grandmother. The back was made out of the remains of an old feed sack and the stamp of the store was still in place.

Also on a display was a quilt by 86-year-old Pearl Burgans. Holland explained the story on how Burgans began her quilting odyssey.

"She started quilting when she was so small that she couldn't reach the quilting racks," Holland said. "She had to stand up to reach the quilt."