Graveyard Quilts

Have you seen the photos of this Graveyard Quilt now in the collection of the Kentucky Historical Society? (Click the link to learn more about the history.) This quilt was stitched in the mid 1840s by Elizabeth Roseberry Mitchell and her daughters Sarah and Elizabeth. The quilt contains a cemetery in the center with coffins of family members around the edges.

When a person died, the paper coffin was moved from the edge to the center section. The border of the cemetery and quilt itself are stitched with a picket fence as well as flowers and a delicate cemetery gate in the cemetery square.

The names of each family member are written on slips of paper attached to the coffins. 

I really like the idea of the quilt as a memento mori. A quilt is comforting by its very nature.