This quilt features a portrait of jazz great Oscar Peterson – one of Ben Hollingsworth’s favorite jazz musicians. It uses pieces of fabric fused rather than sewn together. Today this is a common technique that Ben uses often. He made a quilt for a class he was teaching.
Quilting, or quilt making, is the art of stitching together layers of fabric to create warm throws. Typically, a soft lining is placed between two layers of fabric and sewn on using embroidered designs.
Quilt art originated in ancient Egypt 5,000 years ago, but one of the oldest surviving quilts was made around 1360. The Tristan quilt, made in Sicily, depicts scenes from the story of Tristan and Isolde. famous medieval novel. One part of the blanket is in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the other is in the Palazzo del Bargello in Florence.
Jane Stickle’s quilt is one of the most famous in the world. It was made during the Civil War and consists of 169 five-inch blocks, each with a different pattern. The blanket is made up of 5,602 pieces surrounded by a unique scalloped border. It is housed in the Bennington Museum in Vermont and is only displayed briefly each year due to the fragility of the cotton pieces on a linen backing.
One of the most famous quilts in the world is the linen and cotton “Dear Jane” quilt, created by Jane Stickle (1817-1896) in 1863 and now housed at the Bennington Museum in Vermont. It consists of 169 5-inch squares or blocks, each with a different pattern, and contains a total of 5,602 pieces of fabric. Jane embroidered the words “during the war of 1863” on the quilt.
The most expensive quilt in the world is the “Reconciliation Blanket,” a Civil War quilt that sold at Sotheby’s in 1991 for $264,000. It was created by Lucinda Ward Hohnstein (1820–1904) and consists of 40 blocks depicting scenes of domestic life in the 1860s. It is now housed at the International Quilt Research Center at the University of Nebraska.
Whitney Otto’s 1991 novel How to Make an American Quilt and subsequent 1995 film starring Winona Ryder, Ellen Burstyn, Maya Angelou and Anne Bancroft tell the story of a young bride who listens to family stories told by her elders. how they make a patchwork quilt. The beautiful film can be watched on several online services.
Lynn Tinley, a Ph.D. from Emory University in American Studies with an emphasis in textiles, reports that quilts, made from small pieces of fabric sewn together, became very popular starting in the 19th century.th century Before the advent of cotton and the invention of the sewing machine, many blankets were made from large, uncut pieces of fabric, usually wool or linen, with patterns made visible by stitches woven through two layers of fabric with wool in between. Lynn is a board member of the Milton Historical Society.
Ben Hollingsworth called this quilt “The Rooms of M. Matisse Luer.” is part of a traveling show that I’ve been touring the US for the last year. Modern quilts use a wide range of techniques not available to early quilters. This is a fusible applique quilt that uses a material that melts and fuses one layer of fabric to another. No hand stitching required. Ben uses this technique on many of his quilts.
Amy Walsh owns Shirt Off Your Back Quilts in Alpharetta, where she sells equipment and supplies and teaches classes. Amy, who earned a fine arts degree in textile design from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, says that during the pandemic, as people sewed masks at home, the love for sewing was rekindled. According to Amy, “Today, modern quilt designers are using larger patterns and brighter colors. Advances in technology, including advanced digital sewing machines, are appealing to people of all ages.”
According to local historian and serious quilter Ben Hollingsworth, this was a common occurrence for every early American pioneer who traveled west by covered wagon in the 19th century.th century to make three blankets. One was used to cushion the cart seats, another was hung to keep dust out of the cart, and the third was for general use, including as a shroud, since so many travelers died along the way. Among the pioneers were missionaries who taught local women to sew and make blankets rather than use animal fur for warmth.
Blankets played an important role in the Civil War, providing much-needed bedding for Union and Confederate soldiers. Southern women played many roles during the war, so they did not have much time to make quilts. As a result, wartime quilts were hastily made from simple fabrics and simple block patterns, and very few remain today. One post-Civil War quilt, the Reconciliation Quilt, created in 1867, is considered the most valuable quilt in the world. It was sold at a Sotheby auction in 1991 for $264,000.
Ben, a former Fulton County art teacher and board member of the Alpharetta-Old Milton County Historical Society, describes himself as an artist, but says, “I can do the same thing with fabric. I love working with quilts.”
Each quilt can take anywhere from 10 days to several months to complete because, unlike most quilters today, Ben does not use store-bought patterns. Creating an attractive design can take several weeks. He comes from a family of quilters, and his wife Kathleen is also an avid quilter. Ben says there are 10-12 million quilt makers in the United States and that the quilt market is expected to approach $5 billion by 2026-2027.
Harriet Powers she was a talented craftswoman born a slave in Georgia in 1837. Only two of her quilts survive: one in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the other in the Smithsonian Institution. Powers is considered the founder of the African American quilt tradition.
The early Puritans first brought blankets to America in the 17th century.th centuries to serve as warm bedspreads and window and door covers in cold northern climates. Early settlers in Georgia made blankets from printed calico, a cotton fabric imported from India or Europe. During the Civil War, women made blankets for soldiers because the government did not provide for the army the way it does today. Soldiers’ blankets were typically made quickly and cruelly from simple patterns from feed sacks and old clothing, sometimes from the wardrobes of fallen soldiers. Many soldiers were buried in their blankets, so few wartime blankets remain.
Slaves in the South began making blankets to supplement the meager covers provided by their owners. Harriet Powers (1837–1910) is one of the most famous. She was born a slave in Clark County, Georgia. One of her early quilts consisted of 299 pieces of fabric and depicted biblical scenes and stories that she had heard since she could not read or write. It is located in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Her second quilt was purchased by the wives of faculty members at Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University) in 1898. It consists of 15 panels and illustrates biblical stories and natural events such as the Leonid meteor storms of 1866/1867. It is located in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. These are the only two blankets she made that have survived to this day.