Child's Quilt

The Amish had come to Ohio in the early part of the nineteenth century, and by the 1840s settlements had begun in Indiana by many of those Ohio Amish and by new waves of European Amish and Mennonite immigrants. There were new problems to be addressed (an approaching religious schism and, as with all pioneers, developing new homes and farmlands on the prairies) and as that century turned into the twentieth, there were new quilts to be worked. The Lancaster quiltmaker had directed her creative attention to the complex quilting patterns she chose to work over the large and limited patterns acceptable to that Old Order community. Ohio and Indiana shared new preferences, and intricately pieced cotton quilts began to distinguish the work in more liberal church districts. The Chinese Coins selected for this child's quilt was from a now extensive repertoire of patterns.