Delaware quilts run the gamut

Mayhew, Associate Professor for Fashion and Apparel Studies at the University of Delaware, has served as co-coordinator of the Delaware Quilt Documentation Project since 2004 when she and the late Jane Funderburk of Delaware State University initiated the project after Mayhew attended a meeting of the American Quilt Study Group and learned about nationwide initiatives that were being conducted to document antique quilts.

The newly formed Delaware Quilt Documentation Project held its pilot Quilt Documentation Day in May, 2004 when it examined some of the more than 100 quilts that are part of the collections of the State of Delaware's Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs (HCA). Since that time, 417 participants have brought quilts to be reviewed by the project with more than 1,300 quilts documented thus far.

One of Mayhew's favorite stories from the project concerns a quilt that experienced a close encounter with an industrious chicken. It seems that the quilt in question had been used to cover a bed in a 19th century farmhouse. At that time, screens were not in common use and the farm family had left its windows open for ventilation. One of the farm's chickens took advantage of this opening to enter the home where it began pulling the quilt apart in search of nesting material. In another humorous case, a quilt was crafted utilizing dozens of state-fair-winning ribbons that had been won by one exceptional animal owned by Friedel Dairy Farms.

These and countless other stories collected during the documentation process were gathered by the project's all-volunteer membership that included participants from Delaware and the surrounding states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia including many members of the Eastern Shore Quilt Study Group. HCA signed on early as an active sponsor of the project, coordinating logistics for Quilt Documentation Days and designing and building a special slant-board platform for reviewing and photographing quilts. HCA's Curator of Collections Ann Baker Horsey, now serves as the project's co-coordinator.

Commenting on the quilt documentation process, Horsey noted, "These [quilts] really make tremendously historical statements with impact. People who have brought their quilts in for documentation have become more passionate and excited about history. They realize that their quilts are priceless treasures that help tell Delaware's story."

Now that the documentation phase of the project is drawing to a close, Mayhew and Horsey are excited about the next stage of the project—analyzing and compiling the data, and pulling it together into a published compilation that comprehensively explores the art of quilt making in Delaware. Mayhew notes, "Based on fabric patterns, colors, stitching styles, and other clues, we have already been able to narrow down the time frame of a quilt's creation to within a decade. We now need to study the documentation closely, plot all of the quilts on a chronological timeline, and see if an individual Delaware or Delmarva style can be identified." Publication of the completed book is expected to take place in approximately two years.

For a photographic sampling of quilts examined during the Delaware Quilt Documentation Project, click here.

For a photographic sampling of quilts in the collections of the State of Delaware, click here.