Customer Reviews

The Quilters Hall of Fame: 42 Masters Who Have Shaped Our Art

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This book fills an important need in the history of quiltmaking: it examines the lives, influences, and work of 42 quiltermakers who brought about and nurtured two major revivals of quiltmaking in the twentieth century, infusing a distinguished domestic art form with fresh energy and purpose and thereby generating powerful new economic and aesthetic forces. Nearly anyone living today who has made a quilt has been impacted in some way by the work of these quiltmakers.

They are a diverse lot, joined primarily by their devotion to high artistic and craft standards, phenomenal energy, and a determination to preserve and understand the finest examples of quiltmaking, particularly American quiltmaking.

One of them, Grace McCance Snyder (1882-1982) of Nebraska, stated her ambitions this way: "I wished that I might grow up to make the most beautiful quilts in the world, to marry a cowboy, and to look down on the top of a cloud." Like the others, she had big dreams and realized dreams even bigger than she had imagined.

This is an exuberant, beautiful, and well-written book, and it belongs in the library of every quiltmaker, every student of textiles and American art forms, and every student of women's studies.

I have a good library of quilt studies. It includes most of the important books written on quilts in the 20th and 21st centuries. And yet when this book arrived, it struck me as entirely new and different. I could not put it down. In its stories and many well-chosen and beautifully rendered photographs, I relived my own life. There was Carrie Hall and Rose Kretsinger, whose "Romance of Patchwork Quilts" had for many years been my sole guide in quiltmaking. Lenice Bacon, from whose rather dry book I had learned how to lay out a quilt for quilting, turned out to be an attractive vibrant woman, the maker of a quilt that made me want to pull out my cutting board. Sitting among quilts that would lift quilts from beds to museum walls were Gail Van Der Hoof and Jonathan Holstein, mere kids in 1971 when they were collecting quilts on weekends in Pennsylvania. Nancy Crow's photograph faces what looks more like a piece of modern art (as it is), her Constructions #93: Yes! And there is an overhead view of one of the most powerful engines of the post-Bicentenial quilt world---what most simply call "Houston," the International Quilt Festival in Houston, the largest ongoing convention in America's fourth-largest city. Karey Bresenhan's Quilts, Inc. feeds the flourishing textile market and offers classes from the best instructors along with exhibitions from across the globe. The people whose books had introduced me to American quilts, whose magazines had joined me to others in my own generation, the photographs that had helped form my own aesthetic, and the people who had made possible the textile revolution that gave me fine cotton fabrics with which to work---all were there. Turning the pages of this book was simply a joy I could not resist.

Hazel Carter, who created the Quilters Hall of Fame and Karen Alexander who chronicles Carter's work; Merikay Waldvogel, who wrote the fine introduction to the book; and Marian Ann Montgomery, who edited it, deserve high praise for having created an extraordinary book and brought it out in challenging economic times.

Like the work of the people honored in it, this book is an important document in the history of quiltmaking.

I just received my copy of this book and it is beautiful! I have begun to read it, it is well written, and pictures and stories are wonderful. This is truly a beautiful addition to my quilt history library.

The third edition of the Quilter's Hall of Fame history book is well worth owning. I was delighted to be able to see photos of many important historical figures in the quilt world such as the legendary Dr. William Rush Dunton, the famous Florence Peto, and many others whose portrait photos I had never seen. While I look forward to reading the book in more depth, as time allows, I love the layout. The back and front covers are exquisite and beautifully-made. In just opening the book and reading some of the introductory remarks, one can see the amount of love and care that is the basis of its creation.

Charming is the photo of Marie Webster with her husband and her dear son who helped her with her home-based quilting business with mail order patterns. Before and after views of Marie's home give an idea of the amount of elbow grease and fixing-up that was needed to make the building solid again and a place, now on the National Historic Register, that many visitors enjoy. Best of all, the book is a tribute to influential people who have made a tremendous difference by their work. They have proven just how much they valued quilts and their importance in American society. Hats off to all who worked on the preparation of this volume. I am so pleased to see this book in print and I am happy to have ordered it. The book is a treasure!

I was very pleased with this book, it was so much more than I expected. I have been a quilter for more than forty years, this was like getting a visit from old friends... so many memories.