Nineteenth Century Quilts Of St. Lawrence County - Part 1

There was an entire floor of the museum's Silas Wright house 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 another noted St. Lawrence resident::


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 redwork embroidery table runner with a farm design. My own mother did some similar 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: