Grace Snyder grew up in a sod home in the Nebraska Sandhills, wishing she could grow up to marry a cowboy and make beautiful quilts (she got an early start on quilting, making her first while as a girl when she was keeping an eye on her family’s cattle). She did both, and became such an influential quilter that her creations were featured in exhibitions across the country. Her best-known design, “Flower Basket Petit Point,” modeled after a china pattern, was named one of the top 100 quilts of the 20th century. In 1963, Snyder, with the help of her daughter, Nellie Snyder Yost, wrote her memoir, No Time on My Hands, which is published by the University of Nebraska Press.

Her quilts continue to be influential. Today, more than 20 years after her death, an exhibit of Grace Snyder’s work opens at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum here in Lincoln. This exhibit, which opens today and runs through June 14, features some of her well-known designs, as well as less famous quilts she made for her family.

In other quilting news, April is the official publication month of American Quilts in the Modern Age, the first of several catalogs of influential quilts published by the University of Nebraska Press and written by the staff of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum. Stay tuned for details of an upcoming exhibition of quilts featured in the book.