Blocks

Born in 1912, Aolar Carson Mosely was one of eight children in the Gee’s Bend family of Elizabeth Pettway Carson and Sim Carson. At a young age, she was taught to quilt by her mother. Unlike many of her neighbors, she used a machine that had been purchased by her father. "I ain't never learned to sew with my hand. Most everything I make with a machine." From a young age, she observed her mother going from house to house to participate in quilting groups; she even helped construct the frames used in quilting. She would go with others to the woods, find four long poles, trim them and let them dry. Her father would then nail them together to form the frame.

A fire destroyed most of Aolar's quilts in 1984, with this c. 1955 quilt being one of the few to survive.