Brick Wall
Mary Louise Lyon
Hillsdale, Hillsdale County, Michigan
1876
78 1/2" x 88 1/2"
Cotton with cotton filling
6638.3
Photo by Fumio Ichikawa, all rights reserved by the MSU Museum

Though at first this quilt appears to be a simple scrap quilt, closer inspection reveals a quilt that uses many fine examples of period fabrics in rectangles large enough to study. Included are many versions of Lane's Net, a fabric originally produced in the Lane factory in England when a fabric of thin stripes was crimped in the printing process to create a design with jagged angles. Example's of Lane's Net seen here include some in brown, double pink, and Lancaster blue (this fabric so-called because it was made only in Lancaster, Pennsylvania). Another interesting fabric used in this quilt is "cheater cloth" - fabric printed to look like patchwork. The overall soft brown and double pink color combination of this quilt is typical of the time period.

By Beth Donaldson, excerpted from American Quilts from Michigan State University Museum