Friendship quilts stitched together a story of friendship, community, and artistry. Photo by Adrian Hawkins, NRHC Communications Manager.
Article appears in the Fall 2025 Ranch Record; written by Julie Hodges, NRHC Helen DeVitt Jones Endowed Director of Education
The tradition of friendship quilts dates back to the 1840s when groups of friends signed quilt blocks as tokens of remembrance. By the late 19th century, embroidery had replaced ink, and the practice spread widely across rural America.
Making them was both communal and personal. Sometimes women gathered in parlors for quilting bees, where stories and stitches were shared in equal measure. Other times blocks travelled from ranch to ranch – or even through the mail – before being assembled by a host family. These quilts often marked milestones such as marriages, farewells, or moves westward, carrying community ties into new landscapes.
This specific friendship quilt is from the 1930s and donated by Richard L. Wall, Jr. Wall’s grandmother and mother, Gertrude and Syble Wall, are among the quilt-makers, donating the quilt to ensure their legacy lives on at the National Ranching Heritage Center. Each embroidered name represents a woman’s friendship, her artistry, and her place in a community shaped by rural life.
The Context
Created during the hardships of the 1930s, this friendship quilt embodies both practicality and emotional resilience. It provided warmth on cold nights but also carried the comfort of solidarity in difficult times. For women in rural communities – often separated by long distances and bound to demanding work – quilts like this reinforced ties of care, creativity, and friendship. This quilt preserves their voices and connections at a time when rural life was demanding and often isolating.
The Material
This particular quilt is made of cotton calico, possibly from feed flour sacks unique to each quilter. Early on, feed and flour manufacturers constructed sacks to contain their commodities out of rough fabrics like burlap, but over time softer materials, specifically cotton, came into fashion. By about 1910, they began to use softer fabric, making it ideal fro thrifty homemakers to fashion curtains, sheets, and clothing. Eventually, sack manufacturers became more creative with their label designs, and once they realized that families made and wore clothing from their bags, they began to use printing inks that would easily wash out. In fact, some hired European and New York designers to develop attractive prints, hoping to entice women to choose their bags over competing brands. During the Great Depression, pretty feed sack fabric proved to be a life saver for many families, providing clothing for millions. A 100 lb feed sack could be opened to create a yard of 44-inch fabric. Three would be enough to make an adult-size garment. At the height of feed sack popularity, guides for sewing projects like dresses, shirts, aprons, quilts, and stuffed toys, became available. Newspaper and magazines also printed patterns for a variety of different projects.
This quilt features a cross-block pattern, also known as the Plus Block. Photo by Adrian Hawkins, NRHC Communications Manager.
The Pattern
This quilt features the cross-block pattern, also known as the Plus Block. It is one of the most iconic and versatile patchwork blocks out there. With its cross shape, it evokes a sense of order, harmony, and simplicity, while allowing for a wide range of creative possibilities with colors and arrangements. Names, towns and the year are embroidered on this quilt in green thread. Each block bears the name of its maker, linking rural families and communities together through cloth.
A Verse of Friendship
“Accept our valued friendship
And roll it up in cotton
And think it not illusion
Because so easily gotten.”
This verse was embroidered on an 1874 quilt presented to Pennsylvania school headmaster Eli Hoke. While Hoke was not a public figure, the quilt reflects how the practice extended beyond farm and ranch families to include schools, churches and civic leaders. Such verses remind us that friendship quilts were as much about the bonds between people as they were about the cloth itself.
Friendship quilts embodied practicality and emotional resilience during hardships, providing warmth on cold nights as well as comfort of solidarity in difficult times. Photo by Adrian Hawkins, NRHC Communications Manager.
