Border to Border: Historic Quilts and Quiltmakers

Published: December 17, 2009

An art that requires determination, hard work, and an innate sense of beauty is celebrated in the new, coffee-table-size book Border to Border: Historic Quilts and Quiltmakers of Montana.

Helena native Annie Hanshew, a doctoral student at the University of Utah and the assistant director of the American West Center, wove together the compelling stories and images, with an introduction by Mary Murphy, a history professor at Montana State University.

The book, published by the Montana Historical Society Press, contains more than 300 photographs, many of them in color, of historic Montana quilts, as well as of the people who made them.

Quilts from Montana’s territorial period, statehood and settlement, the hard times of the Great Depression, modern Montana, and the quilting revival under way today offer what Hanshew calls “snapshots” of births, deaths, transformation, weddings, and daily life.

“They are stories writ small, stories that don’t make their way into history books but are stitched into the seams of Dresden Plate, Grandmother’s Flower Garden, and crazy quilts,” she writes in the book.

Her effort has been praised by quilters across the country, including Janet Catherine Berlo, one of the nation’s foremost quilt experts. “Border to Border deftly and seamlessly stitches together the specifics of Montana’s history and the diversity of its women’s artistry. Lavishly illustrated and beautifully written, this book is a ‘must own,’” Berlo said.

The hardcover sells for $34.95; a paperback edition will be released in January.