The Salt Lake City 14th Ward Album Quilt, 1857: Stories of the Relief Society Women and Their Quilt

Quilts are a lot like people. They are not overnight undertakings. They seldom turn out the way they were intended. Colors change when you run short of fabric. Edges misalign where you least expect it.

When Carol Nielson and her husband inherited an album quilt—half a quilt, to be precise—she had no idea of the journey on which the fragile folds of appliqués and painstaking stitches would call her. Created in 1857 by the women of the Salt Lake City LDS 14th Ward, the quilt was raffled o…