Summer Flower Basket Quilt

Floral vases and baskets have long been an important decorative element in quilt designs. They can be traced back to palampores made in eighteenth-century India for the European market, and were common in printed chintzes in early American quilts. Floral baskets have remained a popular motif in appliqued work, especially prominent in Baltimore Album quilts.

In Summer Flower Basket, Phyllis Dale took this common element of album quilts-the flower basket-and isolated it as the single focus of her quilt. She applied a wide variety of fabrics, layer upon layer, to achieve variations in texture, and to emphasize the intricacies of summer foliage.

Dale was an avid quilter and member of the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles. Friends and family remember her as a skilled quilter who had great fondness for miniatures.

Techniques: Hand applique, hand quilted
Culture: American
Geographic Location: North and Central America, United States
Credit Line: Gift of Roy Dale in memory of Phyllis Dale