Quilt Registration

Sponsored by the Early American Museum and the Illinois Quilt Research Project

What type of quilt can be registered?

• Any homemade quilts that were made in Illinois or currently reside in Illinois.
  
• Quilts of any age (modern to antique), any quality (perfect to poor condition), and any skill level (masterpiece to quickie quilt).
  
• The project is not registering quilted wall-hangings ... the quilt must either be made for a crib or at least big enough for a twin-size bed.
  
• ALL of your quilts are important to the history of quiltmaking in Illinois.
  

How do you register a quilt?

You fill out a registration form for each quilt. Each quilt needs to be measured and the age and quilt patterns determined. Finally, a photo of the quilt needs to be taken for the files of the Illinois Quilt Research Project. IQRP will assign each quilt a unique registry number and provide you identification tags that you should attach to each quilt.

When can you register your quilts?

You can register a quilt in-person at any Quilt Registration Day event held around the state. You can also fill out a quilt registration form and send the form and a photo (print, slide, or on a floppy disk in JPEG format) of the quilt to the Early American Museum.

Information that you should bring with you when you register a quilt:

You can register a quilt even though you know next to nothing about its origin. But if you do know something about the quilt and/or the quiltmaker, keep the following information in mind.

• Information about the quiltowner:Quiltowner's name, address, and relationship of owner to quiltmaker; how the owner got the quilt; number of quilts the owner has.
  
• Information about the quiltmaker: Quiltmaker's birthplace and birthdate; birthplace of the quiltmaker's spouse and parents; quiltmaker's location, religion, and ethnic ancestry; number of quilts made by the quiltmaker.
  
• Information about the quilt: Date quilt made; names of other people who worked on the quilt; dates and places of any exhibitions of the quilt and any awards it won; was the quilt made for a special occasion?
  

For more information and copies of the registration form:

Forms are available from the Early American Museum, or you can download a copy of the registration form (in PDF format). In order to view this PDF file you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader that is available for free from the Adobe web site.

Send forms to: IQRP c/o Early American Museum, PO Box 1040, Mahomet, IL 61853. For more information, contact Cheryl Kennedy at (217) 586-2612 or ckennedy@prairienet.org