By: Kathleen L. Moore

Could two strikingly similar quilts found by chance in Texas and Georgia state quilt documentation books and identified as belonging to two different families have been made by the same maker? Research on these two quilts found separate journeys but amazing coincidences in their histories. Investigation into state documentation projects and the Quilt Index uncovered several more quilts of similar design. The study of these quilts revealed a previously unknown cluster of unique quilt block designs narrowly confined in origin to the southeastern corner of Tennessee and northwestern corner of Georgia in the third and fourth quarters of the nineteenth century.

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The Mystery of the Harlequin Star Quilts: Finding and Naming a Previously Unidentified Regional Design  »

By: Anita Loscalzo

Baskets of flowers, bowknots, garlands, and swags appear frequently as appliqué, pieced, and whitework motifs in American quilts made in the first half of the nineteenth century. The historical use of these motifs as architectural elements and in porcelain, textiles, wallpaper, and furnishings will be explored, as well as possible routes of their assimilation into the general design vocabulary of American quilt makers. Garlands derived from ancient times,

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Whence Garlands, Swags, Bowknots, and Baskets? Four Neoclassical Design Motifs Found in American Quilts  »

By: Deborah Cooney and Ronda Harrell McAllen

This paper reexamines the Baltimore Album quilt genre, adding to the substantial body of knowledge generated by previous studies. It analyzes the stylistic change in high-style Baltimore Album motifs that occurred around 1848 and confirms the participation of professionals in block design and preparation. A compilation of new information on quilts made for Protestant ministers documents the role of these quilts in defining a specific Baltimore Album style,

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Baltimore Album Quilts: New Research  »

By: Dale Drake

Two hundred fifty years ago Acadian refugees from Nova Scotia settled in Louisiana, bringing their weaving traditions with them. Over the next 150 years they wove cotonnade fabrics for clothing and bedding, and by the end of the nineteenth century they were making quilts from the scraps. Twenty four of these quilts from private and public collections were studied in this project, which the author grouped by piecing format and textile type: Acadian format or block format,

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Louisiana Acadian Cotonnade Quilts: Preserving the Weaving Heritage of a People  »

By: Rachel May and Linda Welters

The Cushman Collection in the University of Rhode Island’s Historic Textile and Costume Collection includes three unfinished quilt tops and two fabric swatch books, along with over 500 other artifacts. The quilt tops, which were begun in 1833, reveal a family story of North and South that spans two hundred years. The tops were similarly constructed of hexagons with a central star motif, made with the template-pieced mosaic patchwork method.

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The Cushman Quilt Tops: A Tale of North and South  »

By: Dana Fobes Bowne

The textile collection of the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, Washington, includes an unusual embroidered quilt. A handwritten note in its file suggests that it was made in sixteenth-century England. However, the quilt’s motifs indicate that it is more likely a seventeenthcentury Bengali quilt. This paper describes the process to determine when and where the quilt was actually made and how it came to Spokane.

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“Old Quilt Brought to America”  »

By: Susan A. D. Stanley

In her lifetime, Mary Catherine Lamb (1949−2009) completed nineteen quilts, most of them vivid, eccentric portraits of saints, angels, and demonic creatures. Long separated from the faith of her childhood, Lamb believed that her combination of Catholic subjects and vintage textiles and oddments both honored and affectionately skewered her devout upbringing. Scholars speculate that the “disquieting edginess” and “saucy insouciance” of her work influenced the Studio Art Quilt establishment to keep Lamb at arm’s length.

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Mary Catherine Lamb: Lady of Perpetual Garage Sales  »

By: Colleen R. Hall-Patton

Like other art forms, quilting is a microcosm of its surrounding society. Thus, quilting is a possible place to find seeds of the women’s movement and active resistance to consumption. From the 1940s to the early 1970s, quilts slowly underwent a change in status in magazine articles from being understood as antiques and functional bedcoverings to being recognized as art forms worthy of exhibition at the Whitney Museum in New York City.

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Protofeminst Thought in Mid-Twentieth-Century Magazine Articles  »

By: Sandra Staebell

The Godey Quilt is a 1930s appliqué quilt composed of fifteen fabric portraits of men and women clothed in fashionable mid-nineteenth century attire. The dream of Mildred Potter Lissauer (1897−1998) of Louisville, Kentucky, this textile is a largely original design that is not representative of the majority of American quilts made during the early 1930s. Notable for the beauty and quality of its workmanship, the quilt’s crafting was,

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The Godey Quilt: One Woman’s Dream Becomes a Reality  »

By: Jonathan Gregory

In 1934, following a decade of personal losses and financial reversal, Ernest B. Haight (1899−1992) began quiltmaking, which he continued for the remainder of his productive years. As one who by nature and training focused on the process of making things as well as the aesthetics of what he made, Haight developed sew-then-cut and machine quilting approaches that increased the accuracy and efficiency of his quiltmaking. Quiltmaking fed his soul by providing a creative and practical activity that also satisfied his need for intellectual challenge,

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Why Ernest Haight Made Quilts  »