VIENNA — The Missouri Bicentennial Quilt was in Maries County last Thursday afternoon. The beautiful quilt was the topic of interest for many local quilters and history buffs who came to the Vienna Library to see this special quilt.

About 30 people came to the library last Thursday. Many of them spent a long time looking at the quilt as each of the unique 121 individual quilt blocks told their own story of the county they represented. Collectively, the blocks tell the individual stories and histories of each county. The county blocks are located geographically on the quilt.

Each of Missouri’s 114 counties is represented on the quilt along with the City of St. Louis. The Missouri Bicentennial Quilt partners added six quilt blocks to square up the quilt. The partners include the Missouri Star Quilt Company, that donated the time and material to put the blocks together and quilt and bind the project when it got to that point. Organizations represented are the State Historical Society of Missouri (SHSMO), the Missouri State Quilters Guild, and Friends of Missouri Governor’s Mansion.

The project began in 2013, long before many were thinking about the state’s 200-year anniversary in 2021. The bicentennial quilt is a project of the State Historical Society of Missouri and the Missouri Star Quilt Company in partnership with Missouri State Quilters Guild.

Michael Sweeney, SHSMO Missouri Bicentennial Coordinator, said they wanted to do something truly statewide that would reach every county in some way. Because its hard to find unifying symbols for Missouri, the quilt idea was a way to emphasize the local characteristics in each county. So, there were no rules about what to put on the eight by eight inch individual blocks, only that they be an expression of the county they represented. Submission of the blocks was from Oct. 2018 to Sept. 2019. A total of 203 blocks were submitted. What they received was spectacular and represented in artistic ways the diversity of the state. Sweeney said the individual blocks represented many different voices and talents. Some of the pieced quilt blocks are “unbelievable” in the expressions of talented quilters.

The final product is simply beautiful and impossible not to take a closer look and to be impressed with the artistic renditions of the quilters.

The quilt will remain the property of the SHSMO after it has been displayed at every county in Missouri.