"Birds in Flight" variation

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    Photo: Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio
  • Click on image to enlarge

    Photo: Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio
1940s
Cotton
76 x 64 inches
Collection of
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation
Description

Triangles are among the most versatile geometric shapes for quiltmaking, whether they are right-angle, equilateral isosceles, or have irregular angles and sides. Mertlene Perkins’s 1940s “strippy” quilt contains five compound strips of “Birds in Flight” blocks. Changes in the direction of the blocks in the strips keep the eye flying over the surface.