A highlight of every year for lovers of quilt history (old and new) is meeting to share research, treasures, and friendship at the Annual Meeting/Fall Seminar of the American Quilt Study Group (AQSG). Last month, I shared some of the wonderful experiences I had visiting 2025’s meeting held in the coastal beauty of Portland, ME, with tours of the area and a visit to Wiscasset: “Maine’s prettiest village.” It was an amazing event full of old and new friends and a lot of antique quilts. In the previous article, I focused on the off-site tours, but there are many terrific events at the host hotel included with seminar registration. They included Early Maine Signature Quilts, a Special North Carolina Pattern, another Southern Design, an AQSG Icon, to Environmental Messaging Quilts of the21st Century.

One of the highlights of every year’s seminar are the scholarly paper presentations. These are peer-reviewed research papers showcasing “the most recent advances in quilt-related research.” They are presented at seminar and published in Uncoverings, AQSG’s annual academic journal. These papers represent years of intense research by the authors who must condense that information into their paper and then further distill the material to a brief power point talk at seminar. As usual, we were treated to a stellar group of talks on a variety of quilt history, both past and present as indicated above. It was a delight to learn details about such a wide range of topics and time periods, from mid- to late 1800s signature quilts made in Cumberland County, ME, where the seminar was held.

And on to the unique floral appliques on golden yellow backgrounds that hail from Alamance, NC. We learned more about another wonderful Southern pattern, the Harlequin Star. It was also interesting to hear about one of our founding members, Lucy Hilty, and her quilting life.

And lest you think quilt history is only about antique quilts, we saw the “transformational power” of environmental quilts being made today. So much to digest. Luckily, we all took home a copy of Uncoverings with the research papers.

Great food and Entertainment

Seminar also features great food paired with informative luncheon and dinner speakers. This year we enjoyed a keynote speech by independent scholar Lynne Basset on “Embedded: Quilts as Messengers.” Fellow appraiser Pam Weeks shared the “Long and Winding Road” of her life’s journey to quilting with a lot of skiing along the way. There was a special presentation by Elaine Yau, A’donna Richardson, and Julie Silber speaking on Routed West: Twentieth Century African-American Quilts in California and how the Berkeley Art Museum acquired a seminal collection (check out the amazing book Routed West).

Speaking of entertainment, yours truly along with my fellow Juliettes donned nautical costumes (Sandy Starfish, Kathy Cray-fish, Lenna De Marlin, etc.) in honor of Maine as part of the Live Auction along with the auctioneering pirate duo (Dana Balsamo and Julie Silber).

We, the high-kicking sea people, assisted in the auction along with engaging the crowd. Our outrageous outfits and dancing made for a lively evening and helped raise serious funding for AQSG thanks to our generous members. But the highlight was the sea shanty band headlined by our own sea shantress, Mea Clift. There were wonderful antique and contemporary quilts up for auction, along with treasures from beloved Maine quilter Judy Roche.

Tune in next month to learn about the study centers, the silent auction, the vendors mall, and more.

For decades, the Bible has been an inspiration for quilters who depicted stories from its pages in cloth. Among them – the Song of Solomon’s Rose of Sharon, King David’s crown, the guiding Star of Bethlehem, as well as many other Bible inspired blocks. In the 1800s, the Bible was one of the few books accessible to quilters across all societal levels, so it’s not surprising that it sparked many quilted creations.

Harriet Powers’ Bible Quilts

One of the most famous and unique Bible quilts from the 1800s is the “Bible Quilt” made by Harriet Powers (1837-1910) in about 1886 and exhibited by her at a grand fair in Georgia that year. Harriet was born into slavery in Georgia and would never have imagined in her wildest dreams that her work would eventually be housed in the Smithsonian (National Museum of American History) in Washington, D.C. She used a whimsical, folk-art style to depict appliqued human and animal images from both the Old and New Testament. She described her quilt as showing “Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, a continuance of Paradise with Eve and a son, Satan amidst the seven stars, Cain killing his brother Abel, Cain goes into the land of Nod to get a wife, Jacob’s dream, the baptism of Christ, the crucifixion, Judas Iscariot and the 30 pieces of silver, the Last Supper, and the Holy Family.”

Harriet also created a second appliqued folk art Bible quilt referred to as her pictorial quilt which is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA. Collecting note: a Smithsonian licensee reproduced Harriet’s Bible Quilt in China in the 1990s, and with a bit of searching you too can own your own replica Bible Quilt. If you want to learn more about Harriet and her quilts, pick up a copy of Kyra Hicks’ This I Accomplish.

Ruby McKim’s Bible History Quilt

The Bible continued to inspire quilters into the 1900s, and it clearly guided early quilt entrepreneur Ruby McKim to develop a 24-block embroidered quilt pattern named the “Bible History Quilt.” First published in 1927 in The Kansas City Star newspaper and other publications as a special weekly feature printed in the Sunday edition. A simple outline embroidery pattern (line drawing) was published each week.

The quilter had to get all 24 editions to complete the quilt. The series depicts an assortment of Bible stories, including the well-known and easy to decipher, such as: Adam and Eve (“Father Adam” and “Mother Eve”), Noah’s Ark (“The Ark”), and Baby Moses in the Bulrushes (“Moses adopted by Pharoah’s Daughter”). Also shown are more obscure stories that may send you back to the Bible, Sunday School, or at least to Google. These include a man being fed by birds (the prophet “Elijah and the Ravens”), a man releasing water from a rock (Moses and “The Rock of Living Water”), two men carrying large fruit on a pole (“The Spies”), and a man with a piece of fabric or a pelt (“Gideon and the Fleece”). 

Like many of today’s popular blocks, this pattern was first published during the 1930s Quilt Revival, a time when many antique quilt patterns were updated and named, or renamed several times with newspapers and other publications regularly featuring quilt patterns.

Almost all were said to have early American origins, even if just drafted in the writer’s studio; however, the origins of the Honey Bee pattern do go back to one of the earliest pieced blocks – the humble 9 Patch. In the early 1800s, as quilters began expanding beyond whole cloth designs, they started with simple geometric blocks like the 4 Patch and 9 Patch. A 19th-century Honey Bee quilt is shown here, an elegant circa 1860 indigo blue and white beauty.

This earlier version is based on a single 9 Patch block with appliqué details and is the pattern one finds when searching for the Honey Bee quilts made before 1930. The pattern dates back to the 1840s with a documented example that is date 1844 (on the quilt) and perhaps back to the 1830s.

The block has evolved throughout the years and become more complex. The current version actually features two different 9 Patches – an even 9 Patch center incorporated into an uneven 9 Patch block (a pleasing repetition and variation). The earlier versions tend to have a solid, unpieced center but with the same three appliqued leaves in each corner.

In looking at the pattern, one can almost hear the buzzing and see the bees flying home to their hive in the center of the block. Nature clearly was the inspiration for the Honey Bee moniker, first published in The Kansas City Star (1929) and soon followed by Ruby Short McKim (1930), Nancy Cabot (Chicago Tribune, 1933), and Hall and Kretsinger (1935). Nature also inspired the lyrical “Birds in the Air” name from thread makers Coats and Clark’s (1942). Perhaps the most unusual name for the block, “Blue Blazes” (Hall, 1935), was also inspired by some soaring bluebirds.

What do you picture when I say, “Colonial Quilts”? Betsy Ross and Martha Washington sewing scrappy quilts by candlelight or quilting around a frame at a quilting bee? That is the idealistic picture painted in early quilt history books by creative writers harkening back to quilters of yesteryear. An early quilt history book was tellingly titled, “The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt in America” (Hall and Kretsinger, 1935). As lovely as it sounds, most quilters did not do their fine needlework by candle or fire light, and few worked together in quilting bees. Yes, quilting bees did occur, but not nearly as often as depicted in idyllic literature.

Historians have since examined wills and household inventories to learn what textiles were made at the time. They have found that despite the charming images, there was very little quilting in the Colonial or Revolutionary eras. Early Americans were working to build a country, and quilting fabric was not plentiful. Also, the type of quilting we are most familiar with, the pieced block quilt, had not been developed.

Few quilts were made in the 1600s or even by the Revolution. Those made in the 1700s were generally wool bed rugs or whole cloth quilts, and almost all were made in high-income homes. “It has long been a cherished notion that it was the colonists’ need for warm bedding that inspired them to piece together all available scraps of fabric. But the reality is that most women were too busy with the tasks necessary for basic survival, such as growing and preserving food, to spend precious time making quilts for bedcovers where there were other, less expensive sources available” (Kiracofe, “The American Quilt,” 1993). People commonly used woven blankets instead of quilts.

In the early part of the 1800s, quilting was a rich woman’s game, and there were many large quilts made from yardage of expensive imported fabric like chintz and toiles. But on some of those same quilts, you will see that the maker used small bits to piece together segments next to an expensive chintz border. Only women of means had access to a variety of fabric, and even for them fabric was expensive, and there was not a lot of variety. Imagine trying to buy imported fabrics during the War of 1812 when we were battling England. Quilters had their favorites that they wanted to use down to the last bit. They were prudent and careful because they treasured the fabric not because of economics. 

Knowledge is power

With all the online resources available today, it is easy to become an educated consumer. It just takes some determination and time to develop your eye. It can be quite fun to learn history through quilts. Nothing is better than looking at beautiful quilts and learning their stories online and in person. I love to share my collection in antique quilt trunk shows and quilt study classes and I am available to bring my treasures to you.

The American Quilter’s Society quilt appraisal classes are another terrific way to learn about antique quilts and their value. The program’s reading list is a comprehensive resource for your own self-study course in quilt dating and history. The American Quilt Study Group is the best quilt history group with wonderful networking and amazing education seminars. There are also several antique quilt Facebook groups that are like a daily masterclass in quilt history.

Buyer beware

Unfortunately, there are sellers who try to pass off mass-produced Chinese imports as antiques, and since so many imports were made (and are still being made), you need to learn how to recognize them. A few quick clues: no applied binding on edges, large quilting stitches, and matching pillow shams.

Uneducated sellers often unintentionally misrepresent their items especially if they do not deal in textiles. This can work in your favor; just as there are 1930s Grand-mother’s Flower Garden quilts being billed as an 1800s treasure, there are actual 1830s quilts being labeled as Depression-era quilts. You can also learn a great amount by following reputable knowledgeable dealers. Reading their item listings and descriptions on eBay, Etsy, Ruby Lane, Instagram, and on their websites is a fantastic way to learn. Several dealers have released highly informative books about their collections.

Move onward and upward

Your interests will likely change over time and as you grow and mature as a collector. You will probably make a few missteps along the way as you develop your collector’s eye and see what is truly still out there to collect. It is sometimes hard to believe how many amazing quilts there are that have not yet been discovered. Quilts are still coming into the market from family collections, private collections, and even being released from museums. Savvy museums call it de-accessioning and sell off some of their quilts to upgrade, raise funds, fine-tune focus, etc. So follow their lead and let some earlier quilts go to beginning collectors and use the money to improve your own collection.