ISBN 1558533133
Rutledge Hill Press

History / Arts

"Sometimes playful and at other times quite serious, nineteenth-century quilts for children and dolls provided more than warmth and decoration.  Combining practicality with emotion, they were, in effect, celebrations of life expressed in fabric through needle and thread.

Small Endearments uncovers the influences and motivations behind these useful, beautiful works of art.  It pieces together how and why such quilts were made and highlights the cultural influences that affected the makers' choices of fabric, motifs, and style.  Although the book's careful scholarship is impressive, its portrayal of the emotional landscape of the nineteenth century is equally important. 

With more than 250 illustrations, Small Endearments examines botany, literature, nursery rhymes, pets, flags and the frontier as sources for quilt images.  Other inspirations include Bible stories, farm animals, children's games, church, community, social concerns, and the sun, moon and stars.  Woven throughout all of these influences was the role of the family, perhaps the real thread that binds together these creative expressions.  The result is a deeply satisfying book that reminds us that above all, "these 'small endearments' are objects of the heart, and therein may lie their truest worth."