American Homestead Quilts

February 3, 2014
Murphy marries classic house styles with quilt patterns, an odd concept on the surface, but she succeeds. Murphy, owner of American Homestead, a craft pattern design company, does not just pair the obvious, like the log cabin quilt pattern with a log cabin. She designed a Colonial saltbox with triangles, bordered in slate strips; to celebrate the beach house with searchlight and widow’s watch, she chose stars to highlight the house’s highest use on Independence Day. These combos work better than others. The farmhouse becomes just six blocks of red, white, and blue stars inside frames starred at the corners. For the Craftsman home, Murphy models the small glass squares she found in a complementary Craftsman lampshade rather than the house itself. Sometimes only the color selection relates quilt to house, as in the city brownstone’s grey and red and the country plantation’s green and brown. Although Murphy heads each pattern with a short, lyrical commentary, she puts most of her writing effort into clear how-tos for the square or rectangular covers.