Marie D. Webster
(1859-1956)
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Appliqué quilt designer, author, founder of Practical Patchwork Company.
Inducted in 1991 at the West Coast Quilters Conference, Sacramento, California.
Research Associates: Katherine Webster Dwight and Rosalind Webster Perry
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Marie Webster was an influential early 20th century quilt designer, author of America’s first quilt book,
and successful businesswoman.
Born in 1859, Marie Webster did not begin to design quilts until she was in her 50’s. Color pictures of
her first fourteen quilts appeared in the immensely popular Ladies’ Home Journal in 1911 and 1912,
bringing her nationwide fame.
The demands for her patterns was so great that she decided to run a mail order business from her
home in Marion, Indiana, with the help of her sister, Emma Daughtery, and several friends. This
successful venture became known as “The Practical Patchwork Company,” and continued to sell Marie
Webster’s original patterns, kits and finished quilt throughout the 1920s and ‘30s.
In 1915 Marie wrote her ground-breaking book, Quilts: Their Story and How to Make Them, the first
book ever published on American quilting. This highly successful book went through several editions
and remains popular today. To mark its 75th anniversary, an updated facsimile edition with the 36
original color plates has been published with a new biography by her granddaughter Rosalind Webster
Perry.
The Webster designs changed the look of American quilts by introducing graceful natural forms in
delicate pastel shades. Many of these patterns have become classics, executed by America’s leading
quilt makers and published in numerous quilt books, magazines and museum catalogues.
Marie Webster’s own workmanship was superb, upholding the highest standards of the craft. She
loved to make quilts, but her greatest pleasure was to inspire others to create their own handmade
works of art, to be enjoyed now and cherished by their descendants for generations to come.
Marie’s house in Marion, Indiana, a National Historic Landmark, is now the home of The Quilters Hall of
Fame.
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