KINGSTON, R.I. – Feb. 7, 2023 – If you build it, they will come, says Linda Welters. The University of Rhode Island professor in Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design isn’t talking about a baseball field built in some cornfield. She’s talking about the state quilt documentation project that she led in the 1990s.

The project included all of Rhode Island’s 39 cities and towns, spurring hundreds of people to come out and bring their quilts – family heirlooms, some nearly two hundred years old. In all, the project reviewed 886 quilts, documenting their physical features and origin stories. read full news article