While not common, machine quilting does appear on 19th-century quilts. The maker of this piece made novel use of her sewing machine. She appears to have evenly stitched double rows of machine quilting across the entire quilt, but in reality, she only machine quilted through all layers in the red border; she had machine stitched over the hexagon field before she machine appliquéd it to the red background.

Pattern: 
Hexagon, detail
Maker: 
Maker unknown
1860
1880
Possibly made in
Kentucky
United States
80.5
66
IQM, Ardis and Robert James Collection
1997.007.0598