I look forward to this annual compilation of the research papers presented at the conference of the annual American Quilt Study Group. This year’s collection includes four articles that span history from the mid 1800s to current day. The earliest, “Textiles, Print Culture and Nation Building in the 1840s,” evaluates two rare textiles made during the Mexican War era (1846-1848). One is a whole-cloth chintz quilt at Winterthur and one a whole-cloth comforter at the Winedale Quilt Collection of the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. The color plates accompanying this article illustrate the vibrant colors preserved and lost. On the more contemporary end is “Common Threads: Nine California Art Quilt Pioneers,” which looks at nine quiltmakers and their lives between 1966 and 1986. The goal was to discover what led these individuals to pursue quiltmaking. I enjoyed reading what drew them to their art and and the economics of being an artist. The other two papers are “Hortense Horton Beck Tells Her Story,” which tells the story of Beck’s mission to interpret and recreate important appliqué quilts, and “The Palladian Quilt,” which studied a 50th anniversary commemorative signature quilt of the Palladian Literary Society founded in 1871 at the University of Nebraska.

Look for the book at your favorite quilt or book retailer. Here’s a link to Amazon if you would like to learn more about the book.