Kansas Quilts & Quilters

Rating:
Summary: Good but, could be better.
Review: While this is a goody history book on the art of quilting, I don't feel the title is a good representation of what is within the book's covers. After hearing and reading about the Kansas Quilt Project of 1986, I was anxious to get my hands on a copy of this book to see a good representative portion of the 13,000 quilts that were registered. What I found was a book with only 50 pictures (give or take a couple because I counted them) that actually had quilts in them. Half of those 50 were not even quilts "discovered" during their project, but quilts already housed in various museums that in my opinion, being a Kansan, have "been seen before". Also, of the pictures taken from the Quilt Project discovery, the majority of them were in black and white. Part of the art of quilts is being able to see their colors, can't do that with this book.

I hoped for a photographic look into the quilts made by our Mothers, Grandmothers, etc of Kansas. The authors stated that there were no unique "Kansas" quilts or quilts that set themselves off with a "Made in Kansas" look to them, so instead they showed a VERY small sample of the quilts they found, lots of pictures of people and things (no quilts) and a lot of conjecture over what ethnic group should actually take credit for bringing the art of quilting to Kansas.

This book was a disappointment to me being the Daughter, Granddaughter, and Great Granddaughter of Kansas quilters. I hoped I would see a wonderful picture book of quilts made by Kansas women. That did not happen.