Center medallion strips with multiple borders and cornerstones

Martha Jane Pettway created a number of “Housetop” quilts in the 1920s and 1930s using old clothes. In one bedcover, a battalion of brilliant red squares moves in diagonal lines from each of the quilt’s four corners to meet in the center. The highly ordered, eye—popping patches march across a gray wool background that, upon closer inspection, reveals a contrasting pattern of eccentrically arranged strips.