Sheryl Low: Quilt Artist, Historian, Appraiser and Educator

Sheryl Low of Home is nationally known for her expertise in creating and appraising quilts, but her skills represent more than technical or academic talent. Healing, storytelling, teaching and legacy are all part of her life’s work as a quilter.

Low’s interest in quilting began early in her life. She did not grow up in a home with quilts or the creative arts. Her bedcover was an old Army sleeping bag, and she left home at an early age.

As a young homemaker in 1977, Low saw an advertisement for a Log Cabin quilt kit in a ladies magazine. She bought the kit for $40 and finished the quilt. The experience and the resulting quilt expressed her longing and vision for the safe, comfortable home life she wanted to create for her family. She has been quilting ever since.

Low continued to create quilts and improve her skills. Over time, she became financially able to start collecting quilts. Low said that she currently has about 70 quilts in her home, and in her lifetime has made about 300-400 quilts, most of which she has given away as gifts.

All quilts represent a story, and “it is important to sign and date your quilts for future reference,” she said.

Everyone creating quilts does so with a person, experience or goal in mind. Quilts are often given as gifts commemorating an important occasion such as a birthday, wedding or graduation. “When you receive a quilt, you are receiving the gift of time, investment and love. It’s a legacy,” she said.

Quilts are often passed from one family member to another as treasured evidence of affection. “When I find an antique quilt, what is important to me is that I know a woman either saved her fabric from her clothes and her children’s clothes, and sat up at night, maybe by candlelight, and put those scraps together out of a basket. She created something out of nothing. We call this ‘making do,’ and you are making warmth for people out of scraps.”

In the past, quilts were created by necessity, using all sorts of fabrics including pieces from dresses or shirts, clothing or ribbons. Fabric was expensive and never wasted. “In the 1800s, Crazy Quilts were popular,” Low said. “They showed off different stitching that girls had learned, and demonstrated that she had skills to be a good wife.”

During the depression years of the 1930s, the art of quilting was even more important. “The quilt revival was about being thrifty, and they would use feed sacks. The companies would market by using different kinds of fabric. When the feed sack was empty, the woman would make dresses out of them, and when that was worn out, they would make quilts from the feed sack fabric. They were making do.

“The popularity of quilting then declined for some years but began to revive in the late 1960s and ’70s,” she said. Some may recall quilts made of blue jean material from that era, an ode to hippie life. Currently, quilting is a privileged activity for most. Creating a quilt usually means a trip to the fabric store, purchase of new fabric, and extravagant hours spent sewing.

The quilts on display at the Fiber Art Show will showcase Low’s work studying and paying tribute to the quilt historian, Florence Peto, who died in 1970 at age 88. Low has recreated 11 of Peto’s quilts.

“Her meticulous collecting, researching and writing have played a significant role in the history of quilts and quilt making in this country,” according to Deborah Clem on the Quilters Hall of Fame website.

Low began her career as a physical therapist with education culminating in a doctorate in Pediatric Neuroscience. She is a professor emerita at California State University Northridge. Low enjoyed life as an academic but began to slowly retire after moving to Home in 2017. She did not completely stop teaching until 2022.

In 1995, Low won an award at a quilt show for her handwork. In 2000, she took a course in textile history, which led her to start a quilt restoration business.

Low began taking classes from the American Quilter’s Society, leading to her certification as a quilt appraiser. “There are three reasons for having a quilt appraised,” she said. One is for insurance replacement value, the second is for determining a selling price, and the third is for determining a donation value. Low is currently in the process of completing her three-year appraiser training before certification.

Low will present her in-depth study of a quilt at the American Quilt Study Group Seminar in Tarrytown, New York, Sept. 5. Her two-hour presentation includes a small version of the quilt being studied, along with a detail of Low’s investigation into the history of fabrics, threads, and uses of this particular quilt dating back to the American Colonial era. Nearly 500 quilt scholars and museum curators will attend the week-long convention.

Low is currently a member of the American Quilt Study Group, the American Quilter’s Society, the Pacific Northwest Quilt and Fiber Arts Museum in La Conner, and the Washington Quilt Study Group.