November 20, 1933

Detroit News Quilt History Project; Michigan State University Museum; Susan Salser

Detroit, Michigan, United States

Article discussing The Detroit News Quilting Contest and Show.

Prize Winners in Quilting Show
MRS. ARTHUR FISHER EDNA MARIE KENNEDY

Here are the two first prize winners at The Detroit News Quilt Contest and Show at the Naval Armory. Mrs. Fisher, who lives in Romulus, won the grand prize of $100 for the best quilt, and Edna Marie Kennedy won first prize in the children’s section. Mrs. Fisher took up quilting only two years ago and her winning entry was the third quilt she had made. Edna Marie is 12 years old and her entry was the first quilt she ever made.

Quilt Club Members Look Forward to Next Contest

By ESTHER BECK McINTYRE.

Never before, in the lives of thousands of women who visited the three-day patchwork classic in the Naval Armory over the week-end, have bits of sprigged muslin and strips of brilliant silk been so significant.

Spread over the laps of women who gathered in friendly groups groups Sunday afternoon in the Quilt Club Corner, quilt blocks changed hands as friendships were cemented.

Into newer and even finer quilts these gay patches are destined to go, in the hope that the quilt exhibit sponsored by the Detroit News, Friday, Saturday and Sunday will be held again next year.

CLUB HAS BIG GROWTH.
In little more than a year, the Quilt Club Corner, under the direction of Miss Edith Crumb, Beauty in the Home editor, has grown to astonishing proportions. Its members live in New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Indians, Ohio and Michigan. There were quilts in the brilliant array filling 70 great racks, sent from as far as Waco, Tex. and Albany, N.Y.

Running an eye along that vast exhibit, which closed Sunday night after at least 50,000 visitors had viewed it, a person knew that women whose hearts were in their homes had achieved the beauty and art stitched into a thousand lovely designs.

History, astrology, horticulture, poetry and legend contributed their influence to the intricate, beautifully applied designs.

QUILT MADE IN 1760.
Mrs. Frank Gould, of Farmington, had a quilt in the exhibit which drew delighted throngs all Sunday afternoon. A white quilt with a brilliant triple star design, made by her great-great-great-grandmother in 1760 from cloth she herself wove.

A worn coverlet in a rich blue and white design of roses and doves, was shown by Mrs. William A. Gittan, 5029 Dickerson avenue. Her great-great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Gage, wove it on a hand loom in her farm home, Ryckwan Corners, near Hamilton, Ont., from wool shorn from sheep on the farm.

The Sunday crowds showed interest in a comforter made of blocks of satin, brocade and velvet, put together with elaborate feather-stitching in 1890 fashion, owned by Elizabeth Huyette, of Bloomfield Hills.

Margaret Scott’s 85-year-old quilt, pure white, adorned only with a single enormous scarlet design in the form of a feathery snow crystal, was another drawing card.

HOROSCOPE QUILTS.
An enchanting horoscope quilt in yellow, blue and white, made by Ellen Leonard as her first effort in the art had a feature unique among the dozens of horoscope quilts shown. Each patch showing a sign of the zodiac was a loose flap, buttoned down to the quilt surface. Beneath was the horoscope for the birth month named.

That women retain their love for old-fashioned posies was proven in the prevalence of the “flower garden” design, a popular Detroit News pattern.

“Will there be another quilt contest, next year?” was the question heard most often in the Quilt Club Corner, Sunday.

Sunday’s attendance was estimated at over 20,000.

Courtesy of The Detroit News Archives.

2006:1.20.1; 6119.43.36