Patchwork Quilt

Bold stitching enlivens and secures layers of a quilt made mostly of squares. In a variation on the feather stitch, white, pink, green, and red embroidery blazes trails across patches of black, grey, brown, blue, tan, and even grey-white-and-pink plaid. The fanciful stitching also tacks the quilt’s layers together, starting with its top of heavyweight fabrics, possibly from clothing, including cotton, polyester, acrylic, wool, and blends. The quilt’s backing is mostly brown with a few dark grey areas. The borderless quilt was made using a combination of machine and hand stitching. It is one of four quilts from the Sherry Sherrod DuPree Collection (acma-06-041), which documents the history of African American Holiness and Pentecostal movements (2003.0018.0002, 2003.0018.0004, 2003.0018.0005). It might have been used by gospel music groups on concert tours.