BACK TO QUILTS

Snail's Trail

CITE THIS QUILT

img
quilt

QUILT INDEX RECORD

12-8-831

Who documented this quilt?

Michigan Quilt Project

Where are the records for this quilt housed?

Michigan State University Museum

Michigan Quilt Project Number:

86.0043

Owner's name for the quilt:

Snail's Trail

Name of the group that made the quilt:

Hughes Missionary Baptist Church Missionary Society

If you are a relative of the quiltmaker, how are you related? The quiltmaker is my:

Quilt owner

If you are the quilt owner, how did you acquire this quilt?

Received as a gift

Where the quilt was made, city:

Hughes

Where the quilt was made, county:

St. Francis

Where the quilt was made, state:

Arkansas (AR)

Time period:

1930-1949

When was the quilt finished?

c1937

Quiltmaker's gender:

Group

Quiltmaker's city:

Hughes

Quiltmaker's state:

Arkansas (AR)

This is a:

Finished quilt

How wide is the quilt?

62"

How long is the quilt?

86"

Shape of edge:

Straight

Quilt's condition:

Poor/very worn

Describe the quilt's layout:

Block pattern

Arrangement of quilt blocks:

Straight

Spacing of quilt blocks:

Side by side

Fiber types used to make the quilt top:

Cotton

What kind of filling is used in the quilt?

Cotton

Exhibitions where this quilt was displayed:

Michigan Quilts: A Celebration of 150 Years of Textile Tradition, East Lansing, MI, September 12-November 1, 1987, Gallery, Kresge Art Museum, MSU; African-American Quiltmaking Traditions in Michigan, exhibit, February 3-September 29, 1991, MSU Museum, East Lansing, MI; The Museum of African American History, November 1, 1991-January 1, 1992 (Detroit, MI); Flint Institute of Arts, February 23-April 5, 1992; Ella Sharp Museum, January 14-March 7, 1993 (Jackson, MI).

Related items such as diaries, obituaries, wills, household inventories, or pictures of the quiltmaker:

African American Quiltmaking in Michigan (1997) book, figure 99, page 65. Michigan Quilts (1987) book, figure 154, page 103.

Person filling out this form is:

Quilt owner

Ownership of this quilt is:

Private

Quilt owner's name:

Mary O. Brown Holmes

Quilt owner's city:

Muskegon

Quilt owner's county:

Muskegon

Quilt owner's state:

Michigan (MI)

Describe anything about the history of the quilt that wasn't already recorded in a previous field:

Exhibit label: Members of Missionary Society of Missionary Baptist Church. Snail's Trail made 1937, Hughes Arkansas. Collection of Mary Brown Holmes. Cotton with cotton fillilng, 62" x 86", MQP 86.43. Members of the Missionary Society at Missionary Baptist Church in her hometown of Hughes, Arkansas, made this quilt as a wedding gift for Muskegon, Michigan, resident Mary Holmes. Of its making Holmes recalls, "I have a Snail's Trail - that was my father's church. My aunt was president of the missionary society and she must have supervised that. But there was another lady who really loved to piece the Snail's Trail and that was Marjorie Humphrey....She wass a mid-wife so pretty well known in our area. She worked in the missionary society and was a great quilter, too." Holmes, who was taught as a child how to make a Nine Patch and participated in community quilting bees in Hughes, Arkansas, recalls other childhood memories of quilting. "They would use lint cotton [for the filling]. This would be cotton that you could go to the gin and if it wasn't any good you know they would throw it over here in the corner....the person who carried cotton to the gin could pick up a bundle of this. It was kind of trashy, but my father and his brothers they would always go out in the woods and cut cane...for whipping the cotton for quilts. That was one of the things we children had to do - take a pole and you'd beat that cotton until it becomes fluffy and light....Then we'd get down and spread that cotton out on the linings so it would be nice." Holmes, however, never really cared for quilting and remembers finishing only one quilt -- her first Nine Patch.

Access and copyright information:

Restricted

How did the quiltmaker participate in the creation of the quilt?

Made entire quilt

Who photographed this quilt?

Peter Glendinning

Copyright holder:

Michigan State University Museum

Cite this Quilt

;. Snail's Trail. c1937. From Michigan State University Museum, Michigan Quilt Project. Published in The Quilt Index, https://quiltindex.org/view/?type=fullrec&kid=12-8-831. Accessed: 03/28/24