Pieced wool quilt

This quilt is composed of various twill-and plain-weave wool fabrics, most of which are small-scale plaids in shades of orange, gray, white, and black. The design is a central four-patch square within a larger nine-patch format, which is in turn surrounded by large squares. Most of the pieces appear to be fragments of previously used fabrics, some handwoven. The back and edge binding are both brown cotton. There is a layer of cotton batting, and the quilt is machine pieced and hand quilted in a repeating fan pattern.

This quilt was purchased in Rochester, New York. Plaid fabrics like those seen here, originally used for clothing and blankets, were often pieced together into warm, everyday quilts like this one. The preference for plaids in Ontario is indicative of the large Scots-Irish population and of the influx in the nineteenth century of professionally trained weavers from the British Isles. Canadian woolen quilts are frequently quilted across their entire surface with overlapping arcs or fans.