Sarah Bliss Wright Presents The Mt. Ida Quilt Project

One Community, Two Quilts, Three Centuries

This program weaves together the stories of two quilts and the women who made them, connected by land but separated by three centuries.

In 1851, 12 women of the Mt. Ida community in rural Alabama created a floral album quilt as a wedding gift to a young bride and groom, each signing her square with her name and the name of her plantation home. In 2013, 12 women, none of whom were quilters but who live on or near the same land as the original quiltmakers, re-created the quilt, one-quarter of the original size, as a challenge by the American Quilt Study Group.

Each 21st century woman adopted the square of the 19th century woman who lived closest to her present home and, through replicating the old quilt, came to know the original quiltmakers, the history of the community, a greater knowledge of Alabama history, and, in the end, created a sense of community that existed 163 years ago. The Mt. Ida Quilt Project is a history lesson, quilting tutorial, and introduction to valuable research tools easily available to novice researchers.

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