Quilt

Lillian Carpenter Delgado of Northfield, New York, a milliner who used the scraps from her workshop to create this crazy quilt, completed it on her wedding day, circa 1880. More decorative than functional, crazy quilts of the Victorian era comprised many bits of luxurious fabrics and lavish embroidery pieced in a random fashion. The technique evolved from simply patching worn bedcovers, but toward the latter part of the 19th century, scraps of silk, satin, velvet - even bits of sentimental clothing like a wedding dress - were used. By the 1880s quilt-making had evolved from a functional craft to a display of wealth and conspicuous consumption. Advertising contributed to this; crazy quilts and quilting kits promoted in women's magazines signified a departure from the family and oral traditions of earlier quilters. By 1900, as tastes changed and women moved on to the next quilt trend, the heyday of crazy-quilting declined. Never completely abandoned, however, it remains a popular style today