The 97th Juried Art Show at Phillips' Mill closed on Sunday, Nov. 1. The gallery had been open daily from 1 to 5 p.m. since Sept. 26. That is 37 straight afternoons when anyone driving River Road could stop in. After that, the stone mill on the Solebury side of New Hope stays dark for two weeks. On Sunday, Nov. 15, it reopens with something it has not done before.
"Art Quilters Celebrate Independence" opens that day and runs through Dec. 13. It brings 39 juried art quilts by members of Studio Art Quilt Associates of Pennsylvania. For the first time, the Mill is also running a holiday gift shop. The hours are narrower than the fall show's. The quilts are only passing through. If you want to see the show, shop it, or buy a piece off the wall, you have four and a half weekends to do it.
Thirteen afternoons instead of thirty-seven
The juried show kept the doors open every day. The quilt exhibition is open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is $10, and it's free for Mill members and children under 18. Here is how that plays out on the 2026 calendar:
| Weekend | Open days | Saturday docent tour, 2 p.m. |
|---|---|---|
| Opening | Sun., Nov. 15 | None |
| Second | Fri.–Sun., Nov. 20–22 | Nov. 21 |
| Thanksgiving | Fri.–Sun., Nov. 27–29 | Nov. 28 |
| Fourth | Fri.–Sun., Dec. 4–6 | Dec. 5 |
| Closing | Fri.–Sun., Dec. 11–13 | Dec. 12 |
That makes 13 regular public afternoons. SAQA members lead docent tours every Saturday at 2 p.m., so the show has four tours in all. Thanksgiving falls on Nov. 26 this year, so the show is open all three days of the long weekend, starting the day after. That makes the Mill an easy outing with houseguests.
A few times outside that grid are covered in the calendar section below. They include one Tuesday evening and two Thursdays set aside for quilt guilds.
A quilt show in a painters' mill
Quilts make sense here if you look at how the Mill began. Its history page traces the grist mill to the mid-1750s. It credits William Lathrop's Sunday teas with artists and neighbors as the start of the community that became the Phillips' Mill Community Association. The association bought the mill on Nov. 27, 1929, and held its first art exhibition that year. The New Hope Colony Foundation tells the same story from the artists' side. The New Hope Group formed in 1916 and founded the association in 1929. The Mill still describes its fall show as a tradition rooted in "the birthplace of Pennsylvania Impressionism," even though it now hangs contemporary painting, drawing, sculpture and mixed media too.
The quilt show follows the same model in fabric. Fiber artist Jill Kerttula juried it. The Mill's exhibition page says the 39 works explore "the broad meaning of independence, freedom of expression, and democratic values." It also calls them technical departures that make the case for the art quilt as a contemporary fine art medium. The pieces previewed on that page include Liberty by Gay Bitter, E Pluribus Unum by Liz Danish, Starburst Freedom Flow by Eileen Blazic and Spirits Rising by Patty Zaffrin Kennedy.
The 250th anniversary theme is also how the show got paid for. Bucks250PA, the county's America 250 commission, announced $20,000 in mini-grants to 19 Bucks County nonprofits on Jan. 20, 2026. The Phillips Mill Community Association's project on that list is this exhibition. The Mill credits that grant with funding the show in part.
Bucks County's turn on a four-stop tour
These quilts weren't made for River Road. They're a touring show, and the Mill is its only Bucks County stop. SAQA's exhibition schedule lists the full route:
- Moore College of Art & Design, Philadelphia, June 12 to Aug. 29, 2026
- Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza, Oaks, Sept. 17 to 20, 2026
- Phillips' Mill Community Association, Nov. 15 to Dec. 13, 2026
- Reading Public Museum, Jan. 30 to May 23, 2027
Philadelphia had the show for a summer, and Oaks had it for one weekend inside a large quilt festival. Reading will have it for nearly four months in a museum setting. Solebury gets it for the four weeks that lead up to the holidays, in a building whose whole history is about selling art to the people who come to see it.
The Mill as a shop
That last point matters for anyone with a gift list. SAQA says most of the works will be for sale at only two of the four stops, Moore College and Phillips' Mill. Across the tour, SAQA also sells a full-color catalog and affordable mini art quilts by SAQA-PA members. Its tour description adds docent-led tours, I-Spy treasure hunts and a Please Touch station. Those are listed as features of the tour as a whole, so ask at the door which ones are set up on River Road.
The Mill has added its own shop next to the gallery. The new holiday gift shop sells one-of-a-kind work by textile artisans, including scarves, hats, mini quilts, pillows and jewelry. It is open every day the exhibition is open. That puts the shop on the same Friday-to-Sunday schedule as the quilts, plus the Tuesday evening of the Nov. 17 talk.
The calendar around the quilts
The Mill's November and December dates fit around the exhibition. Several of them land on days when the gallery is otherwise closed, so they are the other ways into the building this season.
- Sunday, Nov. 8, 3 to 5 p.m. The Literary Salon on dramatic monologues falls a week before the quilts open. Registration is free.
- Tuesday, Nov. 17, 7:30 p.m. Meg Cox gives "Art Quilts: An Introduction for Art Lovers + Collectors." Cox is a former culture writer for The Wall Street Journal and sits on the Exhibitions Committee at the International Quilt Museum. Her talk covers how quilts in the 1960s and 1970s took on shapes and materials "never meant for beds," with tips from collectors and pieces from her own collection. Tickets are $20, or $10 for members, and the gift shop is open that evening.
- Thursdays, Nov. 19 and Dec. 3, 1 to 5 p.m. These are Quilt Guild Days, reserved for quilt guild members, with SAQA docents on hand. Groups of 10 or more pay half admission, and advance registration and tickets are required.
- Saturday, Nov. 21, 7 to 9 p.m. Staged readings from the 2026 Emerging Playwright Competition. Admission is free, but online registration is required. On the same day you can join the 2 p.m. docent tour in the afternoon and come back for the readings in the evening.
- Tuesday, Dec. 1, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The Annual Holiday Soirée. The Mill says details and registration will be announced.
Registration for the talk, the guild days and the free events goes through phillipsmill.org, and that is the place to check before setting out on any of these dates. Questions about the exhibition go to [email protected].
The schedule comes down to a few dates. The gallery is closed Nov. 2 through 14. The quilts are open to the public for 13 weekend afternoons. On top of those, there are two Thursday afternoons for registered quilt guild groups and one Tuesday evening for the talk and the shop. The show closes Sunday, Dec. 13. After that it travels to Reading and opens there on Jan. 30.
If you're thinking about a home in Solebury or nearby, or about what your own place is worth, Lisa Povlow and our team would be glad to talk it through. Schedule a private consultation.
