Barbara Brackman's MATERIAL CULTURE: Kentucky Regional Design & The '33 Fair #2

Wednesday, August 12, 2026

Kentucky Regional Design & The '33 Fair #2

Design for trapunto or stuffed work

Judges & the 1st Prize winner at 1933's Chicago World's Fair

Final Judges: Sue Roberts of Sears, Anne Orr and Mary McElwain, quilt pattern designers, and Beth Burnett of the Art Institute of Chicago. The stuffed work leaf quilted in the spaces between the stars must have impressed them.

Merikay Waldvogel and I have been studying the '33 fair and its quilt contest for years. See the bottom for posts on various aspects. We have come across many surprises and one of them is the history of the stuffed quilting at the top of the page, a compound leaf branch with feather-like leaflets.

Stuffed work quilting is unusual. One place we see more of it is in the hills of Tennessee, Kentucky and places settled by women coming from those states.

Kentucky silk star in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

attributed to sisters Ellen Norton Littlejohn and Margaret Morton Bibb,

made before the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation when the

Mortons were enslaved in Logan County.

So far two silk trapunto quilts are attributed to the women, the second is in the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian.

And we see variations on the quilting design in other quilts before the prizewinning quilt pattern was published by Mountain Mist in the mid-20th century.

Mountain Mist batting wrapper showing their Star of the Bluegrass

When the Caden sisters commissioned a quilt for the contest they must have decided on a typical Kentucky design. Margaret Caden, whose name was on the entry, did not make the prizewinner but hired contract needleworkers to do the stitching, etc. and never shared credit or cash with them.

It's not only the hired quilting that is indicative of Kentucky regional design but the star design seems to be too. Stars pieced of diamonds seem among the most common of quilts. But I'm surprised to find this particular arrangement is rather uncommon---before the 1933 contest.

Stella Rubin's Inventory

Corner of a mid-19th-century quilt with BlockBase pattern #3772: Four diamonds in each star point,

an uncommon pattern at the time. Such stars usually had 9 diamonds or more per point.

The Morton sisters quilt at the Smithsonian also is a star with four diamonds. The Met's has the more common arms of nine diamonds.

Silk quilt from the Eyestone family in the Illinois State Museum, last half 19th century.

Maker's mother lived in Kentucky.

After publicity about the winner in 1933 one finds many stars with a four-patch of diamonds in each point, some made from the popular Mountain Mist design.