The brown, olive and rust-hued cotton prints in this erratically-pieced block-style quilt appear to be from the 1870s. Cotton quilts with spiraling, almost kaleidoscopic foundation-pieced blocks like this quilt’s were common in the last quarter of the nineteenth century in the United States and are contemporary to the similarly free-spirited Crazy quilts.

Pattern: 
Crazy Blocks
Maker: 
Maker unidentified
Circa
1870
1890
Possibly made in
New York
United States
83
81
International Quilt Museum, Ardis and Robert James Collection
2006.043.0145