Postage stamp quilt

Description:	Postage stamp quilt in brown, pink, blue, red, purple and green has patches approx. 1 in patterned fabrics and solid browns. Top is quilted in parallel lines approx. 3/4 apart with black and brown thread. One side has horizontal quilting lines for 9 1/2 - 11 along one side that change direction and become diagonal. Back is blue with white stars and pieced from 4 sections. The quilt is self-bound 3/8 - 5/ with the back brought forward and machine-stitched in brown and black thread Condition: Front shows some fading with a few patches having fabric loss at the edges. Back has a large hole and binding is fraying. Quilts with thousands of tiny pieces require a great deal of patience and dedication to put together. Working on such a quilt could take years to complete. Postage stamp quilts, so named because many quilters used pieces of fabric as small as a postage stamp, were popular to make in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Miranda Stretcher made this quilt sometime after her marriage to William Wesley Stretcher in 1878. If you look closely, you can see the progression of fabrics as she ran out of fabric and had to start with new fabrics. The Stretchers farmed land near Elwood, Indiana. The donor was Miranda’s grand-daughter. The top is quilted in parallel lines approximately ¾” apart with black and brown thread. Pieces of the quilt are approximately 1” square in patterned and solid fabrics. The back is blue with white stars and pieced from four sections, and the edges are self-bound. Based on the dimensions of the quilt, there are approximately 5,700 pieces.
Created By:	Stretcher, Miranda Elnora Tranbarger
Source:	http://iuidigital.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/CPQuilts/id/211
Collection:	Conner Prairie Museum Textile Collection
Rights:	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/
Copyright:	No Copyright – United States
Subjects:	Textile fabrics -- Indiana -- History Quilts

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