Although Mary Lapp’s family members may have assumed she conceived of the Baskets pattern herself, she likely had seen in on another quilt or as a published pattern. Like other American quiltmakers, some Amish women learned of designs through widely circulating patterns, like those of the Ladies Art Company, which sold patterns through mail order. “Cake Stand,” pictured in its catalog from 1895 through the mid-twentieth century, is the exact pattern of Mary Lapp’s Baskets quilts.