Delia Bennett (1892 - 1976) was the matriarch of an extended family of quiltmakers that included her daughters Creola Bennett Pettway, Georgiana Pettway, and Ella Mae Irby. Quiltmakers in Gee’s Bend typically design their own quilts and eschew printed patterns. Delia’s daughter, Creola, describes her mother’s and her own design abilities in just those terms:
She had it in her head, so that’s why we don’t use patterns. I don't use patterns. When I get ready to make me a quilt, I just get me some cloth and start sewing. We had the pattern in our head, and that was the best. My mother had the quilt in her head. She didn't use no pattern. She used her brains!
The “Housetop” form has always been one of the Bennett family’s preferred quilt forms, and the emphatic and wildly asymmetrical geometries of Delia’s designs continue to echo in the quilts of her granddaughters
Mary L. Bennett and Marlene Bennett Jones.
Delia Bennett’s work is in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Learn more about Delia Bennett
here.
