The halls of Seward United Methodist Church were filled with quilts, quiltmakers and quilt admirers on Sept. 27 for the United Women in Faith’s “Art of the Stitch” quilt walk.
More than 60 full-size quilts, baby quilts, wall hangings and even quilted clothing were on display for viewers to enjoy. About 90 people attended.
Dr. Patricia Cox Crews presented on the Nebraska Quilt Project, a grassroots effort by 21 women of the Lincoln Quilters Guild in the 1980s that catalogued more than 5,000 quilts made by 3,000 Nebraska homesteaders between the 1870s and 1980s.
“They saw ads in newspapers that encouraged the sale of old quilts,” Cox Crews said. “Concerned quilters, they knew those quilts were in family hands that knew who made it, when it was made, where it was made. That was known, generally, but it wasn’t marked or recorded anywhere. They knew that information would be lost when the quilts were sold to dealers out of state.”
The guild traveled the state, recording quilts in 88 of the 93 counties in about two years.
Cox Crews was the founding director of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum in Lincoln. The study center houses the world’s largest collection of quilts, with more than 8,000 from 65 countries, dating from 1600 to the present, including many from Nebraska’s early days.
Cox Crews has extensively researched Nebraska quilts, publishing two books, “A Flowering of Quilts” and “Nebraska Quilts and Quiltmakers,” which won the Smithsonian’s Frost Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in American Crafts in 1993.
“Most Nebraska quiltmakers were Methodist,” Cox Crews said, followed by Lutheran, Presbyterian and Catholic. “Church affiliation was really important to European women settling the plains and the prairies. Women had fewer support systems than did men because they stayed home with the children, so they turned to their churches. That provided their main opportunity for interactions.”
She said Methodist women primarily made quilts for fundraising and relief purposes. Catholic women, by contrast, employed their needleworking skills embroidering church vestments.
Women did not make quilts when they were traveling on their way to homestead, but they resumed making them quickly after settling, sometimes producing beautiful quilts made from silk or hand-painted fabrics while living in dugouts and sod houses.
“Frontier families were still able to get fashionable fabrics,” Cox Crews said, though they had to travel great distances to obtain them along with other supplies and provisions.
The quilts people brought forth for the Nebraska Quilt Project were often the prized family heirloom pieces, not everyday quilts used for bedding or warmth.
“There’s no way of knowing how many more quilts were truly made out of necessity,” Cox Crews said. “The majority said they began quiltmaking because it was a pastime they enjoyed, to escape the everyday routines and create an object of beauty for their home.”
At that time, painting, sculpting and more traditional forms of fine art were regarded as too frivolous for farm women, but quiltmaking gave them a creative outlet. Some women found the process therapeutic, using it to overcome grief at the loss of a child or other tragedy.
Quilts were given to mark special occasions such as births, graduations and weddings.
Church women’s groups often made “Signature Quilts,” selling the privilege to have one’s name embroidered on the quilt for 10 cents. The quilt was then sold at auction to raise money for the pastor’s salary.
“Nebraskans pride themselves on their industriousness,” Cox Crews said. “Quiltmaking in Nebraska was an enduring form of self-expression and creativity.”
Following the presentation, attendees had the chance to view a wide variety of quilts that used different patterns, fabrics and techniques. Many of the quilts on display were made by members of the Seward United Methodist Church, their family and friends.
