Brief History of Quilting



A brief History of Quilting by Joan Hug-Valeriote, Feb. 1999

Quilting over the centuries has been transformed from a utilitarian method of keeping cotton or wool fibers sandwiched in place between two layers of cloth, to an art form that can be seen and enjoyed in galleries and museums, in office towers and government institutions, as Wearable Art in clothing and in the costumes of theatre actors, in home decorating and of course, as coverlets and quilts in bedrooms around the world

Ancient Egyptian cotton and Medieval European undergarments were quilted for warmth. Padding for the knights' suits of Armour were quilted in heavy cotton. Japanese and Chinese working clothes were quilted for warmth and design. In Japan, artistic motifs evolved and became more stylized as they were adapted from the brush to the needle, eventually becoming Sashiko, a traditional form of Japanese quilting that is fashioned with thick white thread on at least two layers of indigo blue cotton. (Mende & Morishige, 1991)

American pioneers created bed-clothes by sewing together scraps of precious textiles, and reusing and recycling the remains of old clothing. Many a utilitarian pioneer quilt was made from the still useable pieces of old men's woolen pants and jackets and stuffed with raw wool, or from the scraps of ladies' dress-making materials and filled with cotton batting.

More and more quilters today are using bonded polyester batting which does not migrate or clump as easily as natural cotton and wool fibers and may be quilted in more widely spaced intervals than the 1/2" or 1/4" intervals previously required to keep unbonded natural fibers in place.

American patchwork evolved during the period up to and including the War of Independence, when textile mills were forbidden in the colonies. All the cotton and wool produced there had to be shipped to England for processing in the mills and then re-imported as expensive finished goods. Whole cloth homespun bed coverings and clothing were produced by families themselves, but fine manufactured goods were expensive commodities and not a scrap of it was ever wasted. Depression quilts were fashioned from feed-bags and the backs of frayed men's shirts and women's cast-off clothing. Today, quilters no longer have to rely on left-over scraps from dress-making and recycling old clothing.

There is now a world-wide network of textile mills, fabric stores and web-sites that cater to quilt artists and produce and stock a fabulous array of textile designs and fabrics, mostly in 100% cotton, although many other media are being used, including paper and leather. Even photographs are being cut up and sewn together into patchwork designs. Of course, they are never intended to be washed.

In the 1970's, there was a resurgence of interest in the art and craft of quilting. In Toronto, a quilt show at the Harbourfront Center entitled "Breaking With Tradition" exemplified this movement from homely craft to refined art form. One of the exhibits, purported to fulfill the definition of a quilt (consisting of a backing, a middle layer and a top layer), was constructed of plastic baggies filled with colored water and encased in chicken wire. "Quilting" had definitely entered the realm of the "avant-garde" and "art quilts" now seem to be more highly appreciated in Europe and Japan than in North America, where they tend to remain in the craft realm in the eyes of many people.

Most patchwork designs are geometrical and traditional in many cultures. The hexagon design can be found around the world from ancient Persia to mediaeval Japan and to 18th century England, where it is known as Grandmother's Flower Garden.

Appliqué designs range from stylized reproductions of plants to realistic drawings of people and places. Appliqué is produced by applying one piece of cloth on top of another and sewing it in place with tiny, invisible stitches. South American molas take this technique even farther, through multi-colored layers of cloth, exposing different layers according to the design and colors desired.

The actual needle-work techniques are mostly traditional, but new tools, such as the sewing machine in the last century, (http://www.ismacs.net/smhistory.html) and the rotary cutter in this century have speeded up the process so that quilters are becoming more daring and willing to take more risks in the use of design, fabric dyeing and construction techniques.

Examples of abstract art can be found in Victorian Crazy Quilts or in modern rotary strip-piecing. As in painting, color value, shading and perspective can be used to create tableaux that range from highly realistic to impressionistic.

Design techniques have come to include computer graphics applications with vector-based drawing software. "Computer-quilting" is becoming extremely popular, where quilt artists can try out new designs and color schemes without cutting a single piece of fabric. Fabric colors and designs can be scanned into the computer and there are now CDROM's with whole libraries of fabric designs that come directly from the textile manufacturers. Computer-assisted quilt design is having a profound effect on the direction of quilt design in the latter part of the 20th century and will probably become the standard design tool for quilters in the 21st century quilting.

Today, quilting has become more of an ornamental art and less of a utilitarian craft. "Quilt" today is as likely to denote a wall-hanging as it is a bed-covering. Asian and African textiles are to be found with traditional calicos, although not always in the same shop! Wall-hangings may communicate a message and tell stories as mediaeval tapestries once did. Small lap-quilts provide comfort while watching TV and a comparatively few intrepid women and fewer men, still make bed-coverings that must now compete for place with down-filled duvets and polyester-filled comforters.