Homestead Quilt

This Homestead Quilt was made quite late in Dorothy and Stan’s quilt-making years. The Leeward kits had branched out into a new size in keeping with the changing fashions for bed-sizes, the queen/king—so this is quite a large quilt.

Bound in bright white, the top and bottom are white as well. There is a floral vine scroll with pink, yellow, blue and green rose flowers cross-stitched onto the border of the quilt. The central motif is a large square marked off by a blue dashed frame.  On either side of the central motif is a smaller floral vine scroll with pink and yellow flowers.  There are two sections to the central motif:  A large, beautiful flower basket overflowing and flanked by blue birds in trees is separated from a large yellow house by a yellow diamond horizontal border.  Grassy hills are stitched in front of the house, a fence beside it, an apple tree stands behind it.  In the yard is a bird feeder with three blue birds swooping in.  A flower basket and a stylized evergreen tree fill the white space to the left of the scene. 

The fruit on the tree, the blue birds, the flower baskets, the evergreen tree (possibly a tree of life), all speak of prosperity and abundance of this scene.  Simple patterns may no longer carry the meaning that they once did, but they refer to an era when those qualities were wished for by everyone. 

This quilt was completed in 1995.