2015

Terrell, Terry Tickhill

United States

From Uncoverings 2015, Volume 36 of the Research Papers of the American Quilt Study Group

Abstract: Elizabeth Stanton, a young Quaker girl, created an inscribed, one pattern, allograph quilt with dates ranging from 1856 to 1865. The quilt contains fifty- three names, said by the quilter’s descendants to be family and friends who were members of the Stillwater Monthly Meeting. In examining that claim, it became clear that deaths in the quilter’s family, religious upheaval, and historic events including the Civil War were pertinent to the construction and meaning of the quilt to the quilter herself. This study documents the identities of the names inscribed on the quilt, describes the quilter’s life and times, and attempts to show how they imbued the quilt with significance to the quilter.

Terry T. Terrell is an independent quilt researcher with a wide range of inter­ests in textile design and production, quilts from the eighteenth and nine­teenth centuries, and the influences of historic and social forces on the lives of quilters and their quilts. Dr. Terrell received a B.S. in Botany and Ph.D. in Ecology. She spent a thirty-year career as a scientific researcher and supervisor of researchers. Upon retirement, she shifted her research interests to quilt history. She has taught numerous quilting classes and has taken the Quilt History class from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She was instrumental in founding the High Plains Quilt Study Group serving southeastern Wyoming and northeastern Colorado.

​When AQSG added Uncoverings articles to the Quilt Index, they omitted all the illustrations, for lack of permissions. Although the articles found in the QI (1980-2010, 2012-2016) lack illustrations, they link to quilts, essays, special collections, and documentation projects across the Quilt Index, introducing them to a wider audience. The permission issues have since been resolved and in 2024, AQSG completed adding all the Uncoverings volumes from 1980-2023 to the Digital Commons@University of Nebraska-Lincoln. They are completely searchable and include all the illustrations. You can find, Uncoverings 2015, Volume 36, at this link, https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/aqsg-uncoverings/9/.