Mosaic or Grandmother's Garden
ca. 1945
Hand-pieced and quilted cotton

Illinois State Museum Collection, gift of the Frank Mason family

In 1929, Ruth Finley published a book, Old Patchwork Quilts, that pictured an early 1800s quilt in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The antique quilt, in a Mosaic pattern, was made entirely of hexagonal pieces arranged to form a central medallion. Bertha Stenge used the same composition for her Mosaic quilt, even replicating the use of striped fabric in certain areas of the quilt to produce star-like effects and a meandering line in the border. During the 1930s many quilters used hexagonal pieced rosettes arranged in a grid--a popular pattern known as Grandmother's Flower Garden. In this quilt, however, Stenge chose the antique central medallion layout but used contemporary fabrics in popular tones of yellow and pink on an aqua background. In a 1945 Woman's Day magazine photograph, two of Bertha Stenge's original design quilts are shown together with the Mosaic antique quilt from the Metropolitan Museum.