Museum Spotlights Antique Friendship Quilts

Beginning this week the Faulkner County Museum presents an ongoing display of antique friendship quilts at the Faulkner County Library. The museum’s textile collection contains quilts from three centuries, and this display contains a few of those from the 1930’s and 1940’s.

Each quilt comes from a small community in the county and contains the names of women and men from these communities. The quilts are exhibited in glass-door cabinets and are located at the back of the library in the Arkansas Room, which is off to the left. For more information call the library at 501 327 7482.

These quilts can tell us a lot about the methods and materials used by quilters many years ago. That includes the fabrics used and how some hold up better than others over the years, the patterns, the cotton batting, how signatures are entered on the blocks, etc. Many long-time residents of the county will recognize some of the signatures.