Signature Quilt

Community: Family and Faith

Cotton, Silk

The signature quilt was made as a fundraiser by the Ladies Society of the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church. Typically, people paid ten cents to have their name on the quilt. The red outline embroidery -- called redwork -- became popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and is still done today. The quilt won a blue ribbon at the Interstate Fair in the year it was made, 1898. It could have raised money for the church or the Spanish-American War that began that year. If you look closely, there are Cuban and American flags depicted on the quilt.

Rebekah Bain is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is a Public & Policy History Major at the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse with German and Music Minor. 

Sam Reinders is from Slinger, Wisconsin. She is studying at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse toward a Public & Policy History Major and a German Minor. She does not have a specific era of history she studies but is learning more about the history of the city she is in through museums and other public history exhibits.

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Cotton Muslin, Machine Stitching

What resonated for me in the signature quilt was a sense of community. Each sewn square is individual and unique to the family it honors while establishing an overall relationship to the church.  As the artist, I look to what holds and brings this unique group of people together in a point of time and place.

Kate Vinson has been a fiber sculptor since 2001; prior to that she worked across the United States from Maryland to Alaska teaching people about the outdoors.