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Eight-Block Housetop quilt

Lola Pettway American
ca. 1975
Not on view
This quilt, with its engaging overall design composed of eight Housetop blocks, was made with corduroy remnants from a large job undertaken by the Freedom Quilting Bee, a cooperative founded in 1966 to help local women make money to support their families. In 1972 the large department store chain Sears-Roebuck and Company placed an order with the cooperative for thousands of corduroy pillow covers. Leftover pieces of fabric from the job were sold to the quilters at bargain prices; tiny scraps were given away. As a result, many quilts from the mid-1970s incorporate pieces of Sears corduroy. Often in saturated shades typical of the era, the fabric brought an entirely new aesthetic to many of the quilters’ works.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Eight-Block Housetop quilt
  • Artist: Lola Pettway (American, born Boykin, Alabama, 1941)
  • Date: ca. 1975
  • Medium: Top: cotton; back: cotton and cotton-polyester blend
  • Dimensions: 84 1/2 in. × 71 in. (214.6 × 180.3 cm)
  • Classification: Textiles
  • Credit Line: Gift of Souls Grown Deep Foundation from the William S. Arnett Collection, 2014
  • Object Number: 2014.548.48
  • Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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