KENTUCKY CROSSROADS
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Quilt Notes:
There are several variations of the quilt block called KENTUCKY CROSSROADS. This Nancy Cabot version (dated January 29, 1933) is unique because it works with rectangles instead of squares along the diagonal sides of the cross where the triangular "bumps" or wedges line up. Cabot did a second version, with the more traditional, squared layout and published it in the Chicago Tribune on January 30, 1938, and which is usually what gets included in the various compendiums (see, for instance, Barbara Brackman's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PIECED QUILT PATTERNS #2602, p.343). But this version is by far the more interesting in terms of its elegant styling and unusual geometry. Cabot says:
"There is romance in the history of every patchwork quilt and in the history of the pattern from which it was fashioned. The stories of some may be longer and more entrancing than others, it is true, but they all have charm.
Years ago, in the early days of Kentucky, the rough clay roads of that section would hardly have been considered romantic. Nevertheless, the rutty, sticky roads were the inspiration [for this block...] KENTUCKY CROSSROADS it is called. […] The bumps in the cross roads stand out in striking relief in materials of plain but contrasting colors. The [...] pattern, by the way, is one of a very few that have been inherited from our ancestresses through many generations without a change of name."
Streets, roads, trails, paths, flyways, and various crossings, often evoked by the expansion in colonial days, are a common theme in quiltdom, see, for instance:
RAILROAD CROSSING
ROAD TO OKLAHOMA
DRUNKARD'S PATH
SNAIL'S TRAIL
ROAD TO TENNESSEE
SNAKE'S TRAIL
WASHINGTON SIDEWALKS
MIGRATION SOUTH
BOSTON STREETS
and CITY STREETS (with Georgia O'Keeffe)
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KENTUCKY CROSSROADS
