This miniature was inspired by a museum quilt, a bed-size quilt made of lush silks and velvets, on display in the New York State Museum. The original quilt is composed of traditional log cabin blocks, arranged in a very unusual setting. The arrangement has intrigued me for a number of years, and the making of this miniature is the culmination of extensive mindplay over the geometry and illusion in the design.

The basic block in the pattern is called a "Log Cabin" block. Log Cabin blocks are constructed by choosing a central square and then laying "logs" around the square "chimney." The size of the central square, the width of the logs, and the number of courses are not prescribed. Neither is the color arrangement. Traditionally, the center of each Log Cabin block is a red or warm-colored square, representing the cabin hearth, and the light and dark strips represent the firelight and shadows surrounding the hearth.

All these variables create endless possibilities for each block, as well as the setting of the completed blocks. One color arrangement creates a half-light, half-dark square, which when set with other squares, imposes a new pattern and actuates movement. By manipulating the final placement of the individual blocks, it is possible to create dramatic and startlingly different visual effects. Some of the names of the designs that have been made over the centuries utilizing this particular Light-Dark log cabin block are Barn Raising, Straight Furrows, Trip Around the World and Streak of Lightning. Another color arrangement, when the light and dark strips alternate around the chimney, creates a pattern named Courthouse Steps.

The setting of the squares in this quilt creates a geometric native american symbol, thought to be Navajo in origin. There is no further information about the totem or its people. It is interesting to see the influence of the native culture expressed in such a modern (for then) medium. These were very expensive fabrics, probably many imported, used in a spread that would complete the interior of a very proper bedroom by European standards.

The original is a part of the quilt collection at the New York State Museum. It can be traced to the third or fourth quarters of the nineteenth century, made by a member of the Luther Vail family of Romulus, in Seneca County. The lavish use of expensive silks, velvets and wools, and the carefully arranged edging indicate that the quilter's family was wealthy, or the quilter worked as a dressmaker for such families. I have tried to maintain the spirit of the original, while also attending to the demands of working in miniature, as well as considering the space in which this quilt will hang. In order to keep the lavish feel of the fabrics, I used rich, warm calico prints, in the same color families of maroons, blues, blacks and browns. I have added one column of squares to each side, and inserted a black spacer border between the log cabin blocks and the sawtooth border, which I believe creates the shape and overall impact that will be the most effective when it is hung.

There are 1,256 pieces in approximately 400 different fabrics. Most of the prints are unique, but the central squares and the outside logs of each block are consistently the same colors, in order to carry the flow of the design. Relax your focus. You may see serpents, mountains, waves, diamonds, lightning, a village, birds. Let your imagination go. Let your spirit soar! That is what quilting is all about!