Crazy quilt

This quilt is the mate to another outstanding silk crazy quilt the Museum acquired in 1974. The overall composition, fabrics, and quilting techniques are the same as those found in 1974.34. While it was not uncommon for Pennsylvania quilts to be made in pairs, reuniting this quilt with its sister quilt will let us show this tradition within our collection. There are slight variations in the two quilts—for instance, the sawtooth border on 1974.34 is pieced of dark red and blue triangles while the same border on this quilt is made of gray and blue triangles. There are also minor differences in the quilting, such as in the black border. 1974.34 has feather and diamond quilting, while this quilt has feather and flower quilting. However, the hand that stitched both appears to be the same.



This quilt has a label roughly stitched to the back stenciled with the name "Lizzie Snavely". The label seems to have been cut off of something else, and then basted to the back of this quilt. There is a line of machine stitching through the label, but the machine stitching doesn’t go through to attach the label to the backing of the quilt. This has brought us to the conclusion that the label is not original to the quilt. Snavely could have been the quilt’s owner at some point, or the label could have been attached to the quilt at a later date, perhaps by a dealer. Snavely is a Mennonite name, but this quilt is not in the Mennonite tradition (they don’t make silk quilts) and we believe that it is of Quaker origins like its mate 1974.34.