Quilt exhibit continues at downtown museum

This quilt, a variation on the "feathered star," is one of several on display at the museum through March.

The Cox-Coker collection of quilts that was on exhibit during the recent Needle Art and Quilt Show will remain on display at Keystone Square Museum through March.

Buena Vista Cox and Mary Emma Crow Coker are the grandmother and great-grandmother of Robert Wright III of Lampasas.

He and his wife, Carol Northington Wright, a longtime needle art and quilt show committee member, donated the quilts for display.

All quilts date from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. The women who made them were homemakers, mothers and wives of farmers, living in the rural communities of Victoria (near Mart) and Prairie Hill. Twenty-four quilts are in the collection.

The quilts were originally created for warmth, not for decoration. While some of them evoke or even closely follow familiar patterns, their primary purpose was not artistic, unlike many of the quilts produced today.

Said Mrs. Wright: "The fabrics alternate or match until they run out of that type of cloth. Then, abruptly, they switch, and you get purple or green somewhere where you expect yellow."

A second quilt on display is the postage stamp quilt.

Two quilts in the collection that demonstrate recognizable patterns are the Postage Stamp quilt and the Seven Sisters Quilt.

The museum, at 303 S. Western Ave., is open Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and by appointment. Admission is free.