Eight-Block Housetop quilt
Lola Pettway
ca. 1975 · Top: cotton; back: cotton and cotton-polyester blend · Modern and Contemporary Art
This quilt, with its engaging overall design composed of eight Housetop blocks, was made with corduroy remnants from a large job undertaken by the Freedom Quilting Bee, a cooperative founded in 1966 to help local women make money to support their families. In 1972 the large department store chain Sears-Roebuck and Company placed an order with the cooperative for thousands of corduroy pillow covers. Leftover pieces of fabric from the job were sold to the quilters at bargain prices; tiny scraps were given away. As a result, many quilts from the mid-1970s incorporate pieces of Sears corduroy. Often in saturated shades typical of the era, the fabric brought an entirely new aesthetic to many of the quilters’ works.
- Artist
- Lola Pettway
- Date
- ca. 1975
- Medium
- Top: cotton; back: cotton and cotton-polyester blend
- Department
- Modern and Contemporary Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Souls Grown Deep Foundation from the William S. Arnett Collection, 2014
