Human Verified
Bible Quilt
- Medium
- Cotton applique with cotton thread and cotton filling
- Dimensions
- 191 x 227 cm (75 x 89 inches)
- Year
- 1885 ... 1886
- Availability
- In a museum collection, not for sale
- Collection
- National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
- Accession Number
- 283472 (ID number TE.T14713)
- Credit Line
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. H. M. Heckman
- Copyright
- Public domain
Description
Eleven panels of Bible scenes sewn in cotton, on a background that was once bright pink with green borders. Powers showed it at a fair in Athens, Georgia in 1886. It is one of only two of her quilts known to survive.
How It Was Made, and What Changed
The blocks are joined with a mix of hand and machine stitching. Almost all the applique was machine stitched, but the animals' eyes, the halos and the suns were pieced and stitched by hand. The record that matters most is not in the cloth. When Powers finally sold the quilt, she walked Jennie Smith through it block by block and explained what each scene was, and Smith wrote it down. Very little American folk art from that century comes with the maker's own account attached.