Quilt discovery shows work of art isn’t always pretty

“The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.”

– L.P. Hartley

The Augusta Museum of History has a new exhibit on quilting that looks interesting. It even features an 1862 tumbling block quilt donated by my dear friend Keith Claussen.

I have been paying more attention to quilts lately because we found one at my parents’ house that remains a family mystery.

My mother had many quilts created by my grandmother and great aunts decades ago. We knew all of them and their stories. But just before Christmas my sister was in my mother’s back closet looking for a requested decoration and found a new quilt.

Actually, it was an old one – really old – which none of us remembered seeing.

It had been wrapped in plastic, but still smelled musty. It was also, in my opinion, sort of ugly. Its colors are dark, subdued browns that aren’t like our other quilts, which are rich in reds and yellows.