Grand Entry Lone Star
Shirley Grady
Mandan, Hidatsa, Sioux and Crow, New Town, North Dakota
1995
Cotton/polyester with polyester filling
80" x 93”
MSUM 7603.1
Photo by Doug Elbinger, all rights reseved by the Michigan State University Museum

Shirley Grady shares, "My great-grandmothers, all our great-grandmothers and grandmothers made patchwork quilts. It was only in the 1950s that some people brought home Star quilts from the Sioux ladies...and then, all the ones that were sewing in my reservation picked up that Star quilt."

This innovative version of the Star quilt incorporates appliqued feathers in the corners and a border of pieced Star tips. The quilting includes an elaborate rendition of the invited leaders of a pow-wow "grand entry" as well as feathers and many other figures. Grady has also incorporated her clan symbol, the wolf, as part of her signature on the quilt.

From Great Lakes, Great Quilts