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Museum of Texas Tech University

Examples of almost every type of American quilt are found in the collection from early chintz quilts to friendship quilts.

3301 4th Street Lubbock, Texas, United States

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With more than 350 examples, the Museum of Texas Tech University holds one of the largest quilt collections of any university. The quilts range from an 1810 trapuntoed white work quilt made in Spartanburg County, SC to 21st-century art quilts made in Texas. Examples of almost every type of American quilt are found in the collection from early chintz quilts to friendship quilts.

One of the most important pieces in the entire museum is the Susan Robb quilt, shown at right. Made for her stepson, Susan's quilt is one of the few to survive that represents the southern point of view during the Civil War. She used her quilt to state her political conviction that the south would win the conflict. The lower right-hand portion of the center block of the quilt features a pelican, a symbol of the south, knocking an eagle, a symbol of the north, off the pedestal.
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Susan Robb quilt

Founding Curator, Betty Mills developed the collection from the 1950s through her retirement in 1986. Funding from the Quilter’s Guild of Dallas’ Endowment Fund in 2000 allowed the Museum with it’s curator at the time, Mei Campbell, to bring in quilt historian Barbara Brackman who provided updated circa dates on the quilts and in many cases a reference to the quilt name documented in her Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. The arrival of Dr. Marian Ann J. Montgomery, a quilt historian and quilter in January, 2014, as Curator of Clothing and Textiles brought a renewed interest in the community not only to the quilt collection but also other forms of needlework and historic clothing.

Recent additions to the collection have included a beautiful Poppy quilt made from a kit by Ethel Abernathy, pieces from Jackie Reis who founded ACCU-PATTERNS, a quilt pattern company in Lubbock, an extensive group of quilts made by and collected by West Texas quilt teacher Linda Fisher and important art quilts by art quilters Ellie Kreneck and Yvonne Porcella. An important signature quilt made by the women of Hispanic heritage of the Iglesia Baptist Bautista Templo, Lubbock Texas in 1988 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the National Women's Missionary Union of the Baptist Church is just one of the Museum's seven inscribed quilts.
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Poppy kit quilt by Ethel Abernathy

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Sampler quilt by Jackie Reis

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Self-portrait by Linda Fisher

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Iglesia Bautista Templo quilt by Women of the Church

The Museum continues to acquire beautiful quilts while also seeking to preserve the legacy of the quiltmakers in requesting images of them from the donors. The Museum seeks to preserve the legacy of the quilters through text, images and the quilts themselves. In cases where more than one quilt by a quiltmaker has come into the collection they show the economic changes in the lives of the quilt maker and their family as well as other aspects of their lives.

The collection includes many quilts made of feed sack fabrics. In addition to the quilts the Museum holds a collection of over 5300 examples of feed sacks, likely the largest collection in public hands. This collection includes hundreds of feed sack fabric swatches, partial sacks and whole sacks.

The Museum is fortunate to have been given over 70 quilts made by one West Texas quiltmaker. As a young girl, Linda Timmons Fisher was given needlework projects by her Mother to keep her occupied after school while her Mother worked. Linda thinks it was an easy way for her Mother to be sure she wasn’t on the phone with boys. Her Mother checked the project progress each day. As an adult Linda developed her embroidery skills, earning several master levels for her work through the Embroiderers’ Guild of America. As it happened the needlework shop was next to the quilt shop in Lubbock at the end of the 1990s and while getting supplies at the needlework shop, Linda became transfixed by the wall of color of the fabrics in the quilt shop. Encouraged by shop owner and quilt historian, Sharon Newman, and employee, Jackie Reis, Linda switched from embroidery to quilt making. Linda knew Jackie Reis because she was in charge of the Embroiderers’ Guild of America Master Craftsman program in Quilting that Linda had completed. Linda excelled as a quiltmaker and was soon teaching budding quiltmakers across West Texas in shops and at quilt shows. Linda’s cheerful personality encouraged many to develop their quilting skills under her tutelage. Linda brings a unique eye to quilt making, always altering a pattern in an interesting way. With the arrival at the Museum of a curator who understood the world of quilt making, Mrs. Fisher stepped in to aid the development of the collection by donating pieces that had been made by other quiltmakers in West Texas and helping to see that the ephemera and quilts made by Jackie Reis and patterns developed by her were preserved at the Museum. Between 2015 and 2020, Mrs. Fisher offered over 100 quilts to the Museum for its collection. Over 70 were selected and Mrs. Fisher then chose to auction the remaining pieces to benefit an Endowment for the Curator of Clothing and Textiles position working to ensure that someone would always be employed to care for the quilted treasures. It is very rare for an institution to have more than a handful of quilts by one maker. Mrs. Fisher’s generous donation enables researchers to study quilt making in West Texas at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century.

Past exhibits have included: 
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Legacy of a Thousand Stitches
January 15-May 15, 2016

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Red, Hot and Quilted [an art quilt exhibit by the Caprock Art Quilters]
September 25, 2018-January 17, 2019

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Cotton and Thrift: Feed Sacks and the Fabric of American Households
June 25-December 15, 2019