The sunburst motif is central to the pattern's dazzling combination of visual elements, and the sun itself is an important icon in the history of visual and written expression. It is a rare and difficult-to-make quilt. вЂњThere are a lot of things that attract me to this pattern, and these are the same things that seem to resonate with Americans throughout the 150+ years it's been made. His quilts have been featured in a short film documentary, created by, which is available for viewing on his website ( ). William Volckening has possibly the largest privately held collection of New York Beauty quilts. In that regard, the Mountain Mist New York Beauty changed history. Since the 1930's, the name 'New York Beauty' has been associated with all quilts made with the same basic design of spiked quarter circles wedged in the corners of square or rectangular blocks, and retroactively applied to pre-1930 quilts. The design is described by Mountain Mist as 'a very old pieced pattern dating from 1776' - a highly romanticized notion of quiltmaking in America - but the pattern name stuck. The suggested quilting design is overlapping or intersecting circles. The Mountain Mist quilt has a simple, long strip border, often seen as a double strip border with yellow and orange fabric. According to the color chart, the orange and yellow on white would be 'pleasing' and 'complimentary to the modern bedroom' while the red and blue on white would produce 'an exact replica' of the traditional quilt.Д¬ompared with earlier Rocky Mountain Road or Crown of Thorns quilts, points are shorter, wider, fewer, and cut off at the tips. The colors of the Mountain Mist New York Beauty are orange and yellow on white, and sometimes red and blue on white. Elements of the traditional pattern are maintained, but dramatically streamlined and modernized. Its design features a diagonal set rather than a vertical and horizontal block, and the cornerstones are LeMoyne stars constructed from eight alternating diamonds in two colors. The Mountain Mist New York Beauty is a very specific quilt. New York Beauty was one of these patterns. In the spirit of the Colonial Revival, designs were based on traditional patterns but were given new names. In 1930, Mountain Mist, a division of the Stearns and Foster company, published a variety of quilt patterns to boost the sale of quilt batting. It is widely considered to be one of the most advanced pieced quilt patterns. The traditional design includes four quarter circles, or arcs, with points radiating outward from the curved seams. The Quilt Index comparison chart, after searching for New York Beauty, illuminates the similar features of these quilt styles. It hadnвЂ™t been popular in New York in the previous century, but it was in Tennessee. In the 1930s, the вЂњNew York BeautyвЂќ title was adopted by Stearns and Foster Mountain Mist В® company for an old quilt pattern to be published as a new design. The New York Beauty quilt was known by several names in the nineteenth century: 'Rocky Mountain Road', 'Rocky Mountain', вЂќRail Through The MountainsвЂќ, 'Crown of Thorns', and 'The Great Divide'. Many block patterns have multiple names, making documentation even more challenging for the quilt historian. The pattern we now refer to as New York Beauty was first documented around 1850. Quilt patterns reflected events in daily life, biblical references, and regional pride. It is no coincidence that GodeyвЂ™s LadyвЂ™s Book began to publish quilt patterns around 1830.

Pieced quilt block patterns, rather than whole cloth quilts, became increasingly popular.

Quilt styles followed closely on the heels of technological advances: the cotton gin, improved production printing of cloth, and finally, the first power loom installed in Waltham MA (1814) which began the first American production of cloth and thread. Quilts of any kind were rare in New England in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and it is unlikely that New England women were making quilts in any number until at least the 1750s. Although patchwork can be traced as far back as the early 1700s cloth was a commodity too precious to waste and almost every quilt for common use was constructed from repurposed scraps. The earliest American quilts were made from imported cloth used for broderie perse and whole cloth quilts.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and patchwork quilts are no exception.

Electric quilt lemoyne star