North Carolina quilting long centered on simple, useful quilts made from practical necessity rather than the elaborate works created by wealthy urban women elsewhere. In the 19th and 20th centuries, rural women in isolated settlements, far from railroads and living in poverty in an underdeveloped tobacco-dominated economy, made and remade quilts from wool and cotton fabrics they produced themselves. Scrap quilting remained necessary in North Carolina until after World War II, even after quilting had become a nostalgic craft in other states by 1860. Worn quilts were recycled into new ones, used as batting, and when they could no longer be repaired or remade, used as insulation in walls and around canned goods in pantries and cellars. Quilting declined as ready-made blankets became available and went out of vogue in most parts of the U.S. by the 1940s, but interest endured and surged again with the bicentennial in 1976, when quilting in North Carolina had finally shifted from necessity to a treasured craft form. A central garden honors this history through quilt-inspired plantings based on traditional Appalachian block patterns such as Log Cabin, Flower Basket, Bow Tie, Grandma's Fan, Double Wedding Ring, and Variable Star. Using tessellation, a technique that evolved from broderie perse, or Persian embroidery, the garden arranges flowers and plants in repeated geometric patterns, changing flowers three times during the growing season to create different versions of a single overall design.