In conjunction with the Great Bell County Quilt Crawl, the Bell County Museum's quilt exhibit, Bell County Stories in Patchwork is now on view.

Quilts have been in Bell County as early as the 1830s, when the first settlers brought them from faraway places.  For early settlers, a quilt provided not only necessary warmth on cold nights, it also served as an outlet for creative expression.  And the often collaborative aspect of the quilting process provided vital social contact in sometimes isolated, lonely surroundings. 

The quilts on exhibit are divided into themes:  appliqué and crazy quilts; friendship and patchwork quilts; and string quilts.  Fabric scraps, plain and fancy, and myriad stitches and designs were used by women to create these striking examples of domestic art.  The colorful geometry of patchwork quilts, the rich ornamentation of crazy quilts, and the simple beauty of appliqué quilts often makes one forget the skill and technique needed to create these complex works of functional art.