American quilt with the Cactus Basket pattern, timespan quilt, from late 19th century (TRC 2018.3127).Over the last few months the TRC Leiden has been working with The Quilt Index (USA) to add the TRC's quilt collection to their website. This work has been carried out by Beverley Bennett, a TRC volunteer and an enthusiastic and very knowledgeable quilter. The following blog was written by Beverley.

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The Quilt Index is an open access, digital repository of thousands of images, stories and information about quilts and their makers drawn from hundreds of public and private collections around the world. The Quilt Index is a digital humanities research and education project of The Matrix: The Center for Digital Humanities & Social Sciences at Michigan State University

There are literally thousands of quilts to be discovered on their website, along with essays, stories, journals, even lesson plans.

The Quilt journalist, Meg Cox, has an article on the website titled ‘A Journalist’s Guide to Getting the Most from the Quilt Index’, which I can recommend – you can find it under Resources, then click on ’Essays’ and it is the first to appear…or simply click here. Then scroll down the page until you find the Textile Research Centre – the museums are listed in alphabetical order, so you will have to click the ‘load more’ button several times or, of course, simply click here.

Crazy Quilt with ribbons, USA, late 19th century (TRC 2019.2925).When you open the TRC page, you will find a short description of the TRC and a ‘View all records in this project’ link, which will take you to the quilts.

We currently have 112 quilts online and I’m sure more will be added in the future. Click on an image to select a quilt and a photo (which can be enlarged for greater detail) will pop up with a short description. More comprehensive details can be found by selecting ‘View Full Record’ on the lower right, again with a photo which can be enlarged.

Something to bear in mind when looking at the shorter description is that quilts are usually dated by the last date known, which in the case of timespan quilts is the date when it was quilted. A timespan quilt is a quilt that is finished many years after it was started.

Some of our quilts fit this description, for example, the first quilt on the page, the Airplanes quilt (TRC 2018.2627), shows a date of 2014 – we know in this case that the quilt top was purchased by a donor and she employed a professional hand quilter to quilt it, so we know the quilting was completed in 2014, and that is the date that appears in the short description.

American quilt with the Bow Tie Chinese Lantern pattern, timespan quilt from second quarter 20th century (TRC 2019.2040).We have an appraiser’s opinion that the quilt top was made in the 1930-1949 period and so this appears in the longer description and makes this a timespan quilt.

The Quilt Index have advised that there is currently a programming error that means the ‘Location’ details on the short description can sometimes be incorrect - they are working on this and it should be corrected shortly.

You will also see a link to the WW2 Canadian Red Cross Quilts on the TRC page – these were recently exhibited at the TRC and the quilts are detailed here with their story.

We hope you will enjoy seeing the quilts in this format – it means that they can be revisited and viewed many times, not only when we have them in an exhibition. If my experience is any guide then you may well happily lose yourself for several hours exploring this extensive website.

Beverley Bennett, 16 August 2021.