People with fewer resources take more liberties with their designs. In all decades of quiltmaking there seem to be no regional favorites, just personal preferences. Wildly mixed colors predominate because, at heart, these are scrap quilts. This is a land where the older women in the more conservative north still wear house dresses topped with a cardigan to keep off the chill. Pant suits appear when a younger family member has moved to the city, and buys for mother and grandmother.
Blue jeans are the practical result of long hours outside helping with the ranch chores.
With color, however, the farther north one goes, the stronger the dark and light contrasts become. Dark quilts are tied with white, pink or yellow string, or all three. If environment does influence crafts people, then the white snow needs to be remembered against the dark presence of the mountains. The statistics also show us, that like the rest of the United States, the Bicentennial brought a tremendous upsurge in quiltmaking in New Mexico. The whole nation was looking to the past and taking pride in pioneer activities.