Talk about "modern" quilts.....!
 

Are you familiar with the quilts from Gees Bend, Alabama, and the amazing group of quilters there who have been making them since the mid 1800s? This article, which I came across on Facebook tonight, gives a history and shows quilts with the names and dates of many of these quilters. As many as a dozen of them were born in the last 20 years of the 1800s and were still quilting well into the mid-900s.

The styles and often the colors of these quilts make them seem quite modern by today's standards. Most are geometric, many have no borders, lots use staggered designs which remind me of zigzag or offset log cabins. All are intriguing and different.

I'm so glad to have known about the Gees Bend quilts for nearly 20 years and I hope my sharing them here with you will strike your interest, too. :)
http://www.soulsgrowndeep.org/gees-bend-quiltmakers

Be sure to click on the little link under each thumbnail to the left of the page for many, many more quilt pictures!

Jan in VA

What beautiful quilts!! Thanks so much for sharing this, I had never heard of this group before!!

so glad you mentioned how they seem so modern--I've thought that too.

about 10 years ago there was a PBS TV Documentry on the women, where they lived (in houses with newspaper for wallpaper) and their bus journey to the big city to see a quilt show and win an award. There is also a large "coffee table" book about the women and their quilts. Glad you found the on line site to share. They ae very unusual

Such modern looking quilts and so many.

I remember seeing the documentary on these women & their quilts. It was very interesting & thanks for the link on these.

Awesome quilts!! thank you Jan!

Great history and quilts. Thanks for sharing, Jan.

When in college, my son was asked by a professor if he would help move some some stuff for an art gallery exhibit. It was at the Walters here in Baltimore and he came home and said "you've got to see these quilts Mom!" It was part of the Gee's Bend collection and I'm so glad I went!

Yes! I read about them, saw them on TV and then got lucky enough to be near a museum where a lot of them were on display and I got to see them up close and personal. Very interesting. Both the stories behind them and the actual quilts. I have some postcards with the quilts on them. Thanks for reminding us about them.