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Southern Appalachian Quilts
The Mountain Heritage Center during the last twenty years has gathered a collection of over forty quilts that are representative of the region. Most were made within a 250-mile radius of Cullowhee, North Carolina, and cover the time period from 1850 to 1975.
Click on the thumbnails below to view and access information about quilts in the Mountain Heritage Center collection.
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In 2001, the Center began the grant-funded "Threads" project to thoroughly examine, document, and conserve this collection of fine regional quilts. The goals of the three-part project were to:
- Examine each quilt gathering information as to dates of construction, pattern names, styles of quilting, regional characteristics, references to documented sources;
- Document each quilt gathering connections to cultural history, genealogy, oral history stories, and references to source materials;
- Conserve each quilt by improving storage materials, repair or restoration techniques, and rotation and examination schedules.
The Mountain Heritage Center would like to thank the following for their support of the "Threads" project: Quilter's Guild of Dallas, Inc for their financial support; Merikay Waldvogel, quilt historian/consultant; Tim Barnwell, photographer; Beth McLaughlin and Kate Rehpokf, conservators with the Biltmore House; and Miron Costant and Joel Evans, Western Carolina University graduate students for design and research.