Quilts in Common was one of two inaugural exhibitions in the new galleries of the International Quilt Museum. This exhibit curated by Carolyn Ducey, curator of collections, and Marin F. Hanson, curator of exhibitions, not only showcased many of the Center's masterpiece quilts, but was organized in a novel and thought provoking way: unique commonalities bring together quilts from around the world and across the centuries rather than isolating them in geographical or historical groupings.

The early history of the United States is intimately linked to the United Kingdom by family relationships and through patterns of immigration and trade. In fact, many settlers aspired to replicate British culture in the New World. Women brought their traditional sewing methods along with their needles, pins, thread, and cloth and then taught each new generation. The work of these American and British women surrounds you, and it shows how patchwork traditions have developed and changed over three centuries and across thousands of miles.

Yvonne Wells taught physical education in public schools for most of her adult life. But, in 1979, while her Tuscaloosa, Alabama, home was undergoing major renovations, she had to sit near the fireplace to keep warm. She decided to make her first quilt to warm her legs until the heating system was restored. With knowledge of how her mother, many years before, made utility quilts—the kind that were “made in the morning and used [th]at night”—Wells made her simple pieced quilt.

"I especially thank Ardis for believing in all of us.”
— Susan Shie, studio quilt artist

Ardis Maree Butler (December 5, 1925 - July 7, 2011) was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, and raised in Lincoln and Omaha. She married Robert G. James of Ord, Nebraska, in 1949, and they raised three children: Robert Jr., Catherine, and Ralph. They made their home in Chappaqua, New York.

A person’s name is more than a few letters and sounds that form a recognizable word. Names like Lady Gaga or Michael Jordan or Bill Clinton immediately conjure up enough stories and pictures in the mind to fill many pages. In other words, a name can represent everything we know about a person.

Jean Ray Laury had it all together, so it seems, and she taught other women how to live a balanced life in the roles they chose, making room for everyday creativity. 

This was Laury’s feminist viewpoint, one that appealed to women for whom a radical change in lifestyle was neither practical nor desirable.

The artists featured in this exhibition are members of Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA), an organization whose mission is to promote the art quilt through exhibitions, publications, and professional-development opportunities. The IQM is pleased to partner with SAQA in this collaborative exhibition project.

Indigo has colored American cloth for centuries. Derived from several different plants in the indigofera family, indigo dye produces a multitude of colorfast blues, from pale sky blue to deep midnight blue. Its range of longlasting colors made it wildly popular and highly valued when it was first imported from India to Europe in the late 1400s, resulting in the nickname “Blue Gold.”

Antique American textiles of all kinds bear the mark of indigo. Fabrics for clothing, interior furnishings, and bedding all were dyed or printed with indigo.

As the United States evolved into a modern, industrialized, and urbanized society in the late 1800s, Americans gazed with nostalgia toward the pre-industrial colonial era. For many Americans, the colonial era was the nation’s Golden Age, a period that experienced the fullest flowering of distinctive American culture and virtues. “Colonial” was defined loosely, encompassing anything pre-Victorian (pre-1840). Americans romanticized the past, imagining it held a simpler way of life and a more perfect society.

“Posing with Patchwork: Quilts in Photographs, 1855-1955” presents a group of antique and vintage photographs in which quilts are part of the scene. The quilts in these photographs are one element in a larger, human story; maybe it’s a story about family relationships, about remembering, about identity, about community. Sometimes we can pull the stories from the shadows by looking for clues: inscriptions on the photograph itself, elements of costume and fashion, or the way in which the quilt is used as a prop—from acting as a decorative backdrop to blanketing a deceased loved one.