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Connecticut Quilt Search

The Connecticut Quilt Search Project was a not-for-profit grassroots organization, which began in 1991. Its members included quilt historians, curators, antique quilt collectors, quilt appraisers, independent researchers, and quiltmakers. Over a six year period, they traveled to 46 D-Days across Connecticut and documented over 3,000 quilts. The quilts represented a variety of sources from across Connecticut including family owned treasures, large private collections, historical societies and museums.
 

Criteria for documentation included:

  • Quilts currently in Connecticut
  • Quilts made in Connecticut
  • Quilts made prior to 1950
The documentation was a three step process:
  • A physical analysis of the quilt
  • An oral history
  • A photographic image of the quilt

 

The Project's work included fundraising; a Quilt Gala; a quilt exhibition at the New England Quilt Museum and the Vermont Quilt Festival; and sponsorship of the 2006 American Quilt Study Group's Annual Seminar in Farmington, Connecticut. Quilts and Quiltmakers: Covering Connecticut (2001, Schiffer Book for Collectors an Designers) is the culmination of CQSP's 10 years of documentation and research of pre-1950 quilts made in the state. It showcases more than 145 quilts accompanied by the histories of the quiltmakers. They range from a signed and dated pre-Revolutionary War medallion quilt from Stonington to a Grandmother's Flower Garden made by one of Connecticut's most prolific 20th-century quiltmakers.

The Connecticut Quilt Search Project donated their extensive documentation forms, database, slides, and other items connected to its project to the Connecticut Historical Society. Proceeds from the successful sales of the book were used to establish an endowment fund, the Connecticut Quilt Registry Legacy Fund in the Main Street Community Foundation, to provide maintenance and upkeep of this archive.

Twenty-four Connecticut museum collections are included in Connecticut Quilt Search. Click on the name below to see their collections.
Bristol Historical Society
Connecticut Historical Society
Danbury Museum
Darien Historical Society
Goshen Historical Society
Greenwich Historical Society
Guilford Historical Society
Gunn Museum
Haddam Historical Society
Henry Whitfield State Museum
Manchester Historical Society
Mansfield Historical Society
Museum of the New Haven Colony
New Milford Historical Society
Norfolk Historical Society
Old Bethlehem Historical Society
Old Woodbury Historical Society
Sharon Historical Society
Sherman Historical Society
Simsbury Historical Society
Stratford Historical Society
Thomaston Historical Society
Torrington Historical Society
Wethersfield Historical Society

Project description provided by the Connecticut Quilt Search.



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