AMERICAN QUILTS AND COVERLETS

This is both a how-to-do-it book and a collector's handbook, in a virtually untouched field. Quilts and coverlets are given short shrift in some other books on antiques. But here is a whole book, with descriptive text, and 56 reproductions in black and white, diagrams, photographs, drawings. The text discusses the historical and regional and social factors over the 100 year period that marked the heyday of the American quilt, from mid 18th to mid 19th century. Various developments -- quilting, patchwork, crewel embroidery, candlewick; the patterns and designs which were common property, loaned from family to family, traded, carried by travelers; the new developments in dyes and use of colors -- and then finis, when the Jacquard looms arrived, and the ease of the machine took the place of loving hand labor. But now there is revival of interest- collecting old quilts, preserving heirlooms, and learning to reproduce the handiwork of our forebears. The manual of instruction explains techniques and their application. Mrs. Peto has written extensively on the subject and owns an unrivalled collection.