Wool Scraps

Fabric gleaned from clothing scraps compose this quilt made by Thomas Mack (1922-2017), a trained tailor. Among the rectangles, recognizable remnants include the grey and brown pinstripes of suits and tweeds, also in grey and brown. Red plaids, two sporting suit pocket flaps, brighten the handstitched quilt, as do lighter grey polyester patches and a single patch of madras plaid. The back of the quilt might be a repurposed bedsheet. In pink and yellow, butterflies alight on hydrangeas against a white background. Pink, red, blue, and purple yarn holds the quilt’s layers together, knotted at the corners of the rectangles, whose eleven shapes offer a similar variety to the fabric. Mack saved scraps from his tailoring work and initially shared them with his mother-in-law, Spencer Miller, for use in her quilts. When she could no longer quilt due to illness, he began making his own quilts from the scraps, “not wishing to be wasteful.” This quilt was among four by Mack on display in “Man Made: African American Men and Quilting Traditions” at the Anacostia Community Museum (2014.0023.0001, 2014.0023.0002, 2014.0023.0003).