Lydia Hooley King (American). Crazy Quilt. 1814-1904. Hand pieced wool, silk embroidery, hand tied; hand and machine stitched cotton backing. Neusteter Textile Collection: Funds from Mrs. Simon Guggenheim by exchange. 1999.113.

height: 72 1/6 in, 183.3033 cm; width: 70 in, 177.8000 cm

Avenir Institute of Textile Arts and Fashion

Textile Arts and Fashion-American

The use of solid-colored fine wool fabric, known as batiste, is typical of Amish quilts from this area and time, but the bold manner in which Lydia Hooley King organized her quilt is distinctive: the orange-red grid has its intersections marked with X at the center of each patched block. The decorative border of reversed cones would not have been allowed by conservative Amish, suggesting that King belonged to a more liberal Amish community.

Purchased from the King family [Lancaster, PA] by Kathryn and Dan McCauley [Cave Creek, AZ., b. 1948]; purchased July 1999 from Kathryn and Dan McCauley by Alice Zrebiec [Santa Fe, NM, b. 1947]; gifted July 1999 by Alice Zrebiec to the Denver Art Museum

• "Textile Art: Recent Acquisitions," December 16, 2000 - June 17, 2001 (DAM)
• "First Glance/Second Look: Quilts from the Denver Art Museum Collection," June 1, 2014 - April 19, 2015