A Stitch in Time at the Museum of Industry

Some of the finest old quilts in Canada will be on display at the Museum of Industry in Stellarton until Sunday, Aug. 25.

The exhibit, Old Nova Scotian Quilts, features 50 examples from the Nova Scotia Museum collection. The exhibit tells the story of quilts, their makers and the tools and fabrics used in quilt making.

The quilts date from about 1810 to 1952. In addition to revealing how quilting styles changed over time, the exhibit illustrates a variety of quilt patterning techniques.

Quilt making has a long history in Nova Scotia. Quilts were both practical bedcovers designed for warmth during long, cold winters and beautiful objects to be treasured by families for generations.

Created with techniques including pieced, log cabin, crazy quilts, all-white whole cloth and appliqué, many of the quilts featured were made from reused scraps of clothing or new materials such as imported printed cotton, wool and silk. The materials were put together in simple geometric patterns such as right-angle triangles, squares and diamonds. The quilters of the past produced wonderful designs by varying light, medium and dark shades of cloth.

"Out of necessity, farming and fishing families made do with very little," said Scott Robson, curator of the History Collection at the Nova Scotia Museum in Halifax. He has researched quilts and quilt making and collected and cared for the 150 quilts in the museum collection for the past 30 years.

"Rather than going out and buying new materials, women of the past were able to make very beautiful things by mixing together leftover fabrics," he said. "The results are striking. They are productions that wouldn't be out of place in an art gallery."

Quilting has regained popularity in recent decades and is respected today as a beautiful form of creative self-expression and an exacting craft.

But the story of quilts is more than a celebration of the objects themselves, it is a patchwork of stories about women's work that is rarely recorded or applauded.

This exhibition reveals a layer behind the intricately sewn patterns of the quilts, bringing into focus the lives of some of the Nova Scotian women who made them. Included in the exhibit are quotes from letters and diaries, clippings from newspapers and historic photographs, some dating from the last half of the 1800s.

Quilt makers in Nova Scotia have not only kept their own families warm, but also made thousands of quilts which have travelled to disaster areas and war-torn parts of the world. It is estimated that more than 43,000 quilts were sent abroad for disaster relief between 1915 and 1965.

Based on research for the exhibition, an accompanying book, Old Nova Scotian Quilts/Courtepointes anciennes de la Nouvelle- Écosse, features full-colour photographs of 50 of the most remarkable quilts in the Nova Scotia Museum collection. Published in 1995, the book was written by Scott Robson and Sharon MacDonald and is the first documentary study of the history of quilt making in Nova Scotia. It provides well- researched insight into quilt making in the province and the social history that surrounds the traditional craft. The book was co-published by Nimbus Publishing and the Nova Scotia Museum and is available in both English and French at the Museum of Industry Museum Shop.

The exhibit opened originally in Halifax in 1993 and travelled across Canada until 1996. It was produced by the Nova Scotia Museum with the assistance of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

In addition to the historic quilts, visitors will see costumed interpreters in the museum's pioneer workshop area demonstrating the tradition of quilting.