Grandmother’s Flower Garden Quilt
- Cotton
-
84 x 68 in
(213.36 x 172.72 cm)
- Ruby McKim
In 1999, Museum member Patty Phillips donated quilt block clippings from the 1929-1930 San Francisco Examiner to the permanent collection. The blocks were for a Flower Garden Quilt designed by Ruby Short McKim. The summer of 2000, two of the clippings were included in the exhibition, Contradictory Comforts: Women & Their Quilts, 1914-1945.
One day, Museum visitor Pat Neumann was looking at these clippings and commented that she thought she had a quilt made in that pattern at home. Sure enough, she did. Weeks later Neumann gifted this quilt, made by a friend of her mother's in St. Joseph's, Missouri, to the
Museum's permanent collection. The quilt was made using the nationally syndicated patterns that appeared in newspapers across the country. What's unique about this quilt is that the maker added seven floral blocks that were not part of McKim's Flower Garden Quilt design.
McKim holds a special place in quilt history as one of the early 20th century's professional quilt designers. As a girl, McKim had aspired to bean artist. She eventually managed to attend the New York School of Fineand Applied Arts in New York City. But for reasons unknown, she did not stay long enough to complete a degree. Later known as Parsons School of Design, this was where, in 1910, McKim came into contact with Frank Alvah Parsons. Quilt scholar Jill Sutton Filo has suggested that Parsons' belief that art should be part of everyday life strongly impacted McKim's decision to focus her artistic energies upon quilt designs, many of which interpreted classic children's stories.
Techniques: hand embroidered, hand quilted
Culture: American
Geographic Location: Central and North America, Missouri
Credit Line: Gift of Pat Neuman
- Subject Matter: Depression Era
- Created: c. 1940
- Inventory Number: 2000.272