Quilt for Doll's Bed c. 1940

This “Quilt for Doll’s Bed” was made by Stella Mosher, who was born in 1855, but we don’t know exactly when she made it. The quilt is made up of red and green squares in a kind of tumbling block design, surrounded by a delicate border. There's a definite process at play here. You can imagine Mosher carefully choosing each piece of fabric, cutting it to size, and then arranging it just so. It’s a real labor of love, right? Look closely, and you’ll see the texture of the fabric, and the way the colors shift in the light. The border of the quilt is especially nice, where these curvilinear shapes and the green flower shapes create a gentle rhythm. It’s like a dance, a back and forth between the maker and the material, and between the different elements of the quilt itself. This work reminds me of the quilts of Gee’s Bend. Both share a sense of improvisation and a real joy in color and pattern, a kind of visual music that can really get stuck in your head.