Nineteenth Century Quilts Of St. Lawrence County - Part 1

Well, if you've been following these posts you may think that I'd seen everything there was to see. But no, there was an entire floor devoted to nineteenth century quilts. I'd never known anything about quilts but figured I'd go take a look. And by the way - the artist, Frederick Remington, was a St. Lawrence resident and some day I'll visit his museum also:


There was a wild, modern looking quilt at the top of the stairs which I later learned was not modern at all:


I entered into the quilt room and was amazed at the variety on display:


But before I looked at the quilts, I began with this redwork embroidery table runner, with stitched designs of chicks and boating frogs:

And another rework embroidery table runner with a farm design. My own mother did some embroidery, so I found it fascinating to see some early works:

A mariner's compass quilt, made by Almena Estes of Canton about 1860:

This modern looking quilt was called a crazy quilt and was a smaller size, known as a lap or throw quilt:

This was where I became fascinated with the quilts. I began looking closely at the intricate work involved and the bits of personal lives illustrated in the artwork. This section showed someone's crabby cat and an oak leaf:

Owls and flowers and tiny, intricate stitches. I found it fascinating that so much time and effort had gone into the creation of this quilt. It's no wonder they were family heirlooms kept for over a hundred years:

A horseshoe and four-leafed clover. And just look at all that minute stitching, all done by hand. Well, I hadn't previously thought I had much interest in quilts but I was totally sold on them by now and still there were more to see. I'll post Part 2 tomorrow: