A very special quilt show is planned for April 11, 12 and 13 at the Sweden Senior Center, 133 State Street in Brockport.
“Celebrating 200 Years of Quilt Making,” is part of the Town of Sweden’s 2014 Bicentennial Celebration.
Organizer Marie Bell says most quilt shows are put on by guilds and groups of quilters, but the Sweden bicentennial show will have “a totally different twist,” Bell says. “It will focus on the Town of Sweden. We’ve gone out to the community and asked for special historic quilts.”
She explains that some donors expressed concerns that quilts made by their grandmothers and great-grandmothers were not in pristine condition.
The quilts don’t have to be in perfect condition,” Bell says. “They were totally utilitarian. They were used and they were made to be used.”
Bell says quilts were often constructed from leftover fabric pieces or from scraps of worn-out clothing. Young girls learned early in life the art of quilting and their first quilt would likely have been a nine-patch quilt, Bell says. In those days, quilts were entirely hand-pieced, “… it was tough to do,” Bell says.
Quilts on display at the April show will include those made from the late 1800s through the 1940s and 1950s, Bell says, including colorful “crazy quilts” sewn by hand with velvet fabric and embroidery stitches. Bell explains that oftentimes, the crazy quilts were made specifically for a particular person – sometimes a member of the military, for example, and would have included military medals.
The show will also feature several recently made quilts constructed by local quilters of vintage “friendship quilt” squares discovered in 2011 at the estate sale of Leland and Vivian Schafer at their home on Park Avenue in Brockport.
About 50-60 squares were purchased and Bell says the blocks are signed by the women who made them and some include dates from 1895/1896.
Friendship quilts were a group effort, Bell says, with a number of friends contributing one square with her name in the center of the blocks. The quilts were typically given as bridal/wedding gifts or as going away presents when people moved.
The blocks discovered in Brockport, “were never finished into a quilt,” Bell says – that is until now.
Five local quilters are turning the blocks into full-size quilts and several of them will be completed for the April show.
“They are all very different and unique – we are really excited,” Bell says.
According to Sweden Town Historian Kathy Goetz, the parents of Leland and Vivian Schafer – Fred and Josephine – originally owned the home and passed it on to Leland and Vivian, who were heirs to the estate.
Fred Schafer ran a successful shoe store in Brockport where his cousin, Wilson Moore and older brother, Manley, founded the Moore-Schafer Shoe Manufacturing Company in the 1880s.
Leland graduated from Cornell in 1921 and worked for the US War Department and later the NYS Department of Tax and Finance. He became very wealthy from wise investments and both he and Vivian were very generous benefactors to their community, Goetz noted.
Vivian graduated from the Normal School’s High School Preparatory course in 1915 and worked as a clerk in the NYS Employment service.
“It is not noted, but she must have had an interest in quilting, for these friendship blocks to have existed and to have remained on her property,” Goetz wrote via email. “It was common for a group of quilting friends to create ‘friendship’ squares in which they used different fabrics to stitch the same square and then signed their names to their squares before making a friendship or signature quilt, or as in this case, several small quilts.”
Because of the historic nature of the quilts on display, Bell says the upcoming show will be of interest to all. “Celebrating 200 Years of Quilt Making” hours are Friday, April 11, noon to 6 p.m.; Saturday, April 12, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Sunday, April 13 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Bell says there is no admission charge but a donation of one non-perishable item for the local food shelf is appreciated.
In addition to the historic quilts on display there will be refreshments and local vendors including Bell’s own Country Treasures Quilt Shop & Primitive Home Accessories, the Lift Bridge Book Shop, Amelia’s Fabric and Yarn Shoppe and the Morgan Manning Quilters, who will be selling raffle tickets for their hand-made quilt.
