America’s Quilting History
• There are stories of how quilting was used
to help the slaves escape through the
Underground railroad. A log cabin quilt
hanging in a window with a black center for
the chimney hole was said to indicate a safe
house.
Flying Geese
Flying Geese
• Controversy remains as to weather the quilts had
hidden messages or where they just symbols to
represent personal beliefs
• Did "Triangles in quilt design signify prayer
messages or did Flying Geese tell slaves to
head north.
• instructed slaves to travel in whatever direction
the 2 darkest triangles were then pointed,
making the way the quilt was displayed
critical.
EUROPEAN AMERICAN QUILTING TRADITIONS
Victorian
crazy quilt
Single men often
purchased quilts, as
did affluent women
for the decoration
of their homes and
beds.
Quilts also served
as a source of
income for many
women on the
frontier.
http://xroad
s.virginia.e
du/~UG97/
quilt/etrads.
html
Amish
cross within a cross
• Strongest reason for the rise of quilt making in the
American colonies is utility.
•
Women needed to be able to use available materials, like
the quilt pictured here made out of feed sacks, in order to
save scarce money.
• Often quilts were
made in order to
record a specific event
or celebration -- the
birth of a child, a
wedding, a festival, an
anniversary.
• Here is a
contemporary quilt
that records the
celebration of the
American
Bicentennial.
•
Amish quilts
• Amish quilts didn’t really catch on in Amish communities until the
1870s. Before then, the Amish shunned quilt making as “too modern
• Amish quilts at first were very ordinary. The first Amish-made quilts
were made in one solid color. That one color was often black, brown, or
blue.
• Many people assume that all Amish quilts were always made completely
by hand. That is not true. While some are handmade, many were pieced
together by using a treadle sewing machine.
• a community consensus has had to be reached in many instances when
deciding if certain colors – like pink and white – are acceptable to use.
Amish Quilt
Star of Bethlehem
The aids quilt is not only the largest, but is also the most
affecting piece of folk art in the world. It has more than
10,000 panels (each memorializing a victim of Aids), made
from taffeta, vinyl and burlap, with wedding rings, stuffed
bears, and fragments of old family quilts sewn into it.
The Aids quilt on the Washington
mall
Quilts
From traditional to art Quilt
•
“The Quilts of Gee’s Bend” features more
than sixty quilts made between 1930 and
2000 by four generations of quilt makers,
resulting in a body of work that is bold,
colorful, and unique.
• The New York
Times called “some
of the most
miraculous works
of modern art
America has
produced,”
The quilters lived in a isolated
river-bend community-formerly part of the Pettway
Plantation—A cohesive
artistic tradition, shared by
many generations of African
American women,
What gives the quilts of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, their
particular power? One look gives you a sense of their
originality and graphic impact. The Gee’s Bend quilters
inventively combine materials to form bold, abstract
compositions that reveal a genius for color and geometry.
These quilts, sometimes pieced from worn clothing, were
originally made for practical use, often piled in layers on
beds for warmth.
Thethe quilters lived in a isolated river-bend community-formerly part of the Pettway Plantation—A cohesive artistic
tradition, shared by many generations of African American
women, that lies behind each scrap of fabric and boldly
assembled pattern.