Ernest Byron Haight

Kaleidoscope Star, original design
Designed and Pieced by Ernest B. Haight, about 1938
Hand quilted by Elmer W. Haight, 1940
87” x 76.75”

Many quilt owners have a mother and grandmother’s quilt in their collection, but few can claim one made by their father, or even more rare, father and grandfather.

Nebraska’s most distinctive quiltmaker, Ernest Haight, belies the notion that quiltmaking is women’s work, and even more paradoxically, his involvement in the art resulted from his father’s example and encouragement, rather than his mother’s. His father, Elmer Haight, had been quilting with a local women’s society for some time when he suggested that Ernest piece a quilt for each of his five children and that he, their grandfather, would hand quilt it. Ernest took up the challenge in 1936, and father and son together completed four of the quilts.

MACHINE QUILTING
Ernest pieced many of his quilts on the treadle sewing machine that his maternal grandparents brought by covered wagon to Butler County about 1880. His mother, Dora, quilted for him after his father died, but she managed only one or two a year and could not keep up with his output of pieced tops. Thirty-five or forty tops stood in line for quilting in 1960, when Ernest and his wife, Isabelle, decided to confront the problem. As a first step Ernest replaced the old treadle sewing machine with a new zigzag model. Next he devised a method for quilting by machine. He explains his method in a booklet entitled Practical Machine-Quilting for the Homemaker, published in 1974. His method of machine quiltmaking requires fifty to sixty hours of piecing and eight to twelve hours of machine quilting for each full-sized quilt. Binding on the machine takes another hour and a half. His pioneer ancestors and their quiltmaking friends would have been astounded at Ernest’s speed of production.

PUZZELS
Ernest made puzzles before he made quilts. He especially enjoyed carving interlocking wooden blocks and chains. He translated one of his wood puzzles to fabric to produce his red-and-white “Interlocking Squares” quilt. This machine-quilted and machine-pieced quilt illustrates his quilt and puzzlemaking analogy in that “[quilt] pieces have to match precisely. When you put them together you have a nice finished product. When they are spread apart, they are little more than scraps of material.”
 
Ernest did not keep track of how many quilts he made over the years, but he quilted for fifty years (1936-1986) and, according to his wife, he gave away five to fifteen quilts each year.

Source: https://quiltindex.org/view/?type=essays&kid=29-117-1

by Ernest B. Haight/ The Engineer Who Could exhibition, June 7, 2013-March 2, 2014

MALE QUILTMAKERS
While quiltmaking is typically done by women, throughout history some men have also made quilts. In the late Middle Ages in Europe, men were professional mattress makers and quilters, which require the same techniques. Today, the number of male quiltmakers is growing and some, like Joe Cunningham, John Flynn, Ricky Tims, and Mark Lapinsky, have made full-time careers in quiltmaking.

Source: https://www.internationalquiltmuseum.org/exhibition/engineer-who-could

by Ernest B. Haight / The Engineer Who Could exhibition, June 7, 2013-March 2, 2014