Amish Quilts of Indiana
While we are on the subject of Amish Quilts, I’d like to call your attention to a file of quilts provided by Judy Morton, quilter extraordinaire of Indiana, and collector of Southern Indiana Amish Quilts. She graciously provided all of the photos shown on our website of this kind of quilt. These quilts are best viewed using Internet Explorer browser.
Anyone who knows Amish Quilts will tell you that they are made differently in Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, the three major areas of the United States where the Amish live.
Of course, the most valuable Amish Quilts date from a time before they were “discovered” by the tourist trade. 1950 seems a good cut off date for that. Jonathan Holstein and his (late) wife, Gail van der Hoof collected many Pennsylvania Amish quilts and enjoyed the aesthetic result of hanging them vertically. Some reminded Holstein, who had an art background, of Mondrian paintings. Their landmark exhibit at the Whitney Museum was not the first show to hang quilts on a wall. However, it is the one most often noted as a change in perspective for more viewers: an utter transformation from bed quilt to wall art. Jonathan Holstein could be called the grandfather of the modern art quilts movement.
When we visited Pennsylvania in 1999, it was disappointing to see so many poorly-made quilts for sale. I am told that I did not know where “to go.” The tourist shops have quilts that are hastily-made for the trade and truly indicative of the fine stitches normally associated with fine Amish quilting. As noted at the end of my website article about the Hmong people, many refugees from southeast Asia were taught to do quilting by the Mennonites, and much of the work that is marketed neglects to mention that the quilts were not quilted totally by Amish or Mennonite women, but by Hmong women (who certainly have a cultural tradition of doing fine needlework!). For the purists, the resulting works are neither Amish nor Mennonite, but Hmong, a secret because Amish quilts are not labeled as to who made them (their cultural tradition).
At any rate, that is a small summary of Amish Quilts. The previous blog mentions a book by Darwin D. Bearley that will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about Ohio Amish Quilts.
A search on my website will bring up other Amish files, with photos. Use the word search function within the text of the front page.
Until Later,
Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications
