Textile Arts Book List ·

Barn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail Movement

The story of the American Quilt Trail, featuring the colorful patterns of quilt squares painted large on barns throughout North America, is the story of one of the fastest-growing grassroots public arts movements in the United States and Canada.…

Irish People, Irish Linen

The story of Irish linen is a story of the Irish people. Many thousands of men and women made Irish linen a global product and an international brand. It is also a story of innovation and opportunity. Irish linen has served its makers as sail cloth of incredible strength and durability for world exploration and trade; it has functioned as watertight containers for farmers and firemen; it has soothed the brows of royalty and absorbed the sweat of the working class.…

Philena’s Friendship Quilt

A Quaker Farewell to Ohio

Chenoweth’s research to discover the story behind a Quaker signature quilt made in Columbiana County, Ohio, in 1853 revealed not only the identity of the quilt recipient and details of her life and community, but also a striking feature of the quilt itself—a “hidden” design element created by the deliberate placement of names on the quilt’s surface. In Philena’s Friendship Quilt, Lynda Salter Chenoweth reveals the value of signature quilts as historic and social documents waiting to be read.

Album Quilts of Ohio’s Miami Valley

From 1888 to 1918, a community of Miami Valley neighbors and relatives made album presentation quilts to celebrate life passages. Their sharing of designs and construction techniques led to the development of a distinctive regional quilt style that has never been duplicated in any other region of the state or country. Album Quilts of Ohio’s Miami Valley presents more than two dozen never-before-published color photographs of these folk art album quilts. Sue C. Cummings’s documentation and collection of this remarkable grouping is a landmark moment in quilting history.

Uncommon Threads

Ohio's Art Quilt Revolution

Gayle A. Pritchard’s compelling narrative threads its way through the emergence of the art quilt, from artists working in isolation to the explosive “big bang” of the first Quilt National exhibition and its inevitable reverberations.

Quilts of the Ohio Western Reserve

Quilts of the Ohio Western Reserve includes early quilts brought from Connecticut to the Western Reserve in northeastern Ohio and contemporary quilts, including one by a conservative Amish woman and another inspired by Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Ricky Clark, one of Ohio’s foremost quilt historians, has assembled exquisite examples of calamanco, T-shaped, and borderless pieced quilts to show the influence of Connecticut aesthetics and history on the making of early quilts in this region. Rich in color, detail, and inventiveness, the quilts of this region commemorate community history.

Ohio Is My Dwelling Place

Schoolgirl Embroideries, 1800-1850

One of the most intriguing cultural artifacts of our nation's past was made by young girls—the embroidery sampler. In Ohio Is My Dwelling Place, American decorative arts expert Sue Studebaker documents the samplers created in Ohio prior to 1850, the girls who made them, their families, and the teachers who taught them to stitch.…

American Coverlets and Their Weavers

Coverlets from the Collection of Foster and Muriel McCarl

Coverlets woven in vibrant colors of red, blue, white, and green are as popular today as they were in the nineteenth century.American Coverlets and Their Weavers is a lavishly illustrated guide to one of the premier collections of coverlets in the nation.…

West Virginia Quilts and Quiltmakers

Echoes from the Hills

Tucked away in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, preserved for generations, handmade bed quilts are windows into the past. In 1983, three West Virginia county extension agents discussed the need to locate and document their state's historic quilts.…