DAR Museum Quilts

Inside the DAR museum in Washington, D.C., you'll find more than 300 American-made quilts. In this room, quilts adorn the sofa and chair.

The Texas Room at the DAR museum depicts a bed chamber in the hill country of Texas in the 1870s. The quilt on the bed in the room features fruit basket applique blocks and is probably one of the rarest in the DAR collection because it's machine-quilted. Sewing machines were quite rare in the late 1800s.

In the Maryland room, you'll find one of the most striking quilts in the DAR collection, which was made by the wife of Francis Scott Key, Mary Taylor Lloyd Key. The quilt measures about 110 inches square. It has a top and bottom but no lining and is not quilted. Such an item is sometimes referred to as a summer spread. The Key family called this cover the Five Blazing Stars quilt. It's five Mariner's Compass blocks are surrounded by tiny triangles.

Also in the Maryland room is this piece by Catherine Garnhart, who was born in 1773 and died in 1860. Garnhart was one of the most prolific and celebrated quiltmakers of the 1800s. This quilt is special because 80 percent of it was done using a reverse-applique technique.