Ode to Aunt Mary Quilt

This quilt was made for and given to one of Dorothy's favorite cousins, Betty Roth of Monterey, California, as a Valentine's Day present in 2000. It is shown with the owner's permission. Aunt Mary was Dorothy's and Betty's eldest maternal aunt and the family eccentric. Late in life she scandalized her family by opening - in the foyer of her home in an otherwise respectable residential neighborhood in Denver - a shop from which she endeavored to sell hats of her own design to neighbors and church friends. That short-lived enterprise gave Dorothy the idea for this quilt on the theme of hats. In many ways this is typical of the other early quilts. The overall pattern is identical to that of the Apple Quilt, and they both take an inanimate object as their theme. However the dizzying profusion of headwear that Dorothy included in this piece (a toque, a beanie, a crown, bonnets - both sun and Easter -- a fez, the Brown Derby, a deerstalker, and caps - both dunce and coonskin - to name only a few) offers a strong suggestion of the work to come. This, the last of the family quilts, is a significant transition between the two eras of
Dorothy's quilt making.

Techniques: hand pieced, hand stitched, appliqued, embroidered, tied
Culture: America
Geographic Location: North America, California
Credit Line: Gift of Vance Family Trust