Falling Blocks Quilt

Ernest B. Haight was a farmer and agricultural engineer who enjoyed making quilts but found working by hand too slow and tedious. Applying his engineering background to the problem, he pioneered machine-piecing methods that eventually revolutionized the use of the sewing machine in the last two decades of the twentieth century. His methods allowed him to complete a quilt in sixty to seventy-two hours. His self-published 1974 booklet Machine Quilting for the Homemaker laid out his timesaving methods fro machine piecing squares, rectangles, and right triangles. As in this example, Haight often framed his oddly set blocks with narrow, precisely cut strips of black fabric.

The quilt shows patchwork squares in an off kilter pattern. Twenty squares, each of which is outlined in black. The border has green and white striped fabric with multi-colored diamonds. Quilting pattern of diamond, machine stitch.

Techniques: Machine pieced and quilted
Culture: American
Geographic Location: North and Central America, United States, Nebraska
Credit Line: Gift of Lillian G. Collins and Maurine Schuldt