Dayton Depot Presents Local Quilts

DAYTON--The Dayton Historic Depot is showing a new quilt exhibit for 2016. Tamara Fritze, museum director at the Depot, said there are 25 quilts in the exhibit and they range in age from almost 100 years old to just a few months old. A few of the quilts are older, but most are modern, she said.

Fritze said the fabrics used in the quilts are traditional and modern. Reproduction fabric was used in some, as well as batik and flannel, she said.

Sylvia Demaris' quilt, Burgoyne Surrounded, is a Civil War era pattern for which reproduction Civil War era fabric was used, Fritze said.

Benedicte Carbonnier's log cabin style quilt is made out of flannel, and Elizabeth Floyd and Linda Clarys used applique methods in their quilts, she said.

Fritze explained that Dianne McKinley used scraps from her scrap stash to create Granny's Square, and Susan Schlenz has the smallest piecework in her quilt, Sister's Scraps.

Sandy Hawks' quilt Vanishing Hearts was done in a watercolor style, with pieces arranged from light to dark, and Sylvia Demaris has used different colors of thread, including metallic thread in her 2012 creation Sunburst, said Fritze.

Some of the oldest quilts were made by grandmothers for their granddaughters.

Fritze said that Betty Fletcher's Sunbonnet Girl pattern quilt was made for her by her grandmother Lida Cahill Jackson in 1935, and Delores Robanske's Six Pointed Star quilt was made by her grandmother Minnie Russell, in the early 20th century.

Of particular interest to Fritze is the tulip appliqued friendship quilt that was donated to the exhibit by Barbara Tewalt. That quilt was made by a group of Dayton women in the 1940s, and is signed by Mabel Wooten, Theresa Dickinson, Pearl Dunlap and Sadie Seney, among others.

Fritze pointed out a possible connection between that quilt and another quilt in the exhibit that was made by the youngest person to donate her quilt to the show.

Eleven-year-old Sadie Seney's hand tied quilt was made at 4-H camp, and it is her first quilt. She won the First Prize Sweepstakes Championship ribbon for it at the 2015 Columbia County Fair, according to Fritze.

Young Sadie's mother, Kim Seney, said that the elder Sadie Seney is her daughter's paternal great great grandmother, and agreed that it is likely the 1940s friendship quilt was made by her.

The quilt show will be on display until the end of 2016, according to Fritze. She added that there will also be a one-day quilt show in the garden at the Boldman House in Dayton on July 2, from 11 a. m. to 4 p. m.

The Dayton Historic Depot is located at 222 East Commercial Street in Dayton and is open to the public from 11:00 a. m. to 4:00 p. m. Wednesday through Saturday.