Pieced and Patterned in St. Petersburg, Florida

     Are you planning  a fall or winter trip to the St. Petersburg/Clearwater/Tampa Bay area of Florida? You can't spend all your time on the beach, right? The Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg has an awesome exhibit that you shouldn't miss if you are interested in history and/or quilting. It's called Pieced and Patterned: American Quilts, 1800-1930.  There are more than thirty quilts on display, all beautiful and full of history.  The exhibit is open through January 23, 2020.  Check out the Museum's webpage at https://mfastpete.org/

    Every quilt is a masterpiece, and the effort that went into making each one is mindblowing.  Among my favorites were the crazy quilts, so-called because they were made of scraps or irregularly cut pieces of fabric, with no discernable overall pattern.  Sometimes, the quiltmakers added random appliques or buttons or other materials, and they often used silks or velvets, fabrics usually not found in utilitarian quilts. Crazy quilts were became popular in the 1880s.

    Other quilts reflect the more detailed and tedious aspects of quiltmaking, displaying elaborate patterns or artistic stitchwork for example.  And when I say tedious, I mean tedious.  Look at this postage stamp quilt, for example. The fabric squares are literally cut to the size of postage stamps. Can you imagine the work?

(detail)

(full quilt)

    

(Snake pattern, popular in Florida in 1920sand 1930s. The fabric that comprises the snakes is printed flour sack material.)

    I even learned from the exhibit that quilt patterns even reflected a family's political loyalties.  The motif on the left above is called the "Whig rose" and was popular in the 1830s and early 1840s. On the right, the pattern is called "Whig's defeat," in reference to the 1844 election in which Whig Henry Clay was defeated by Democrat James K. Polk.

    

    When you've seen the quilts, be sure to check out the rest of the museum's collections. The museum is not large, but it has a beautiful selection of representative objects from a multitude of times and places.