Well, I found it difficult to answer this question so quickly. There are so many interesting things to know about quilts! So I began to write something down. I am grateful to my sister Hildegard who patiently edited this, because her English is so much better than mine!!!
If you like, here is for you to read:
A Short History of Quilts
Well, what exactly is a quilt?
Quilts are usually known as bedcovers, but you can also find quilted wallhangings, cushions, placemats, clothes and bags for example.
The quilted bedcovers in particular are generally associated with feelings like warmth, love, friendship, trust, hope. These bedcovers are made to protect the loved ones when they are most vulnerable. In former times they were also often the only pieces of decoration in a home. Since these quilts were usually crafted by a circle of friends, neighbors or family members, then dedicated to friends and family members and passed on from generation to generation, these carefully designed and crafted bed-quilts were treasured as a memory of everyone who had worked on it or had used it in maybe hard and dangerous times.
Originally a quilt was more a sleeping bag. A quilt by definition is a "sandwich", consisting of a top layer of fabrics, sewed together with a backing layer and batting material which goes between the top and the backing. In the past, every imaginable material was used for that purpose, from corn husks to straw and raw cotton or old blankets. Quilting-stitches then beautified the object and kept the batting from shifting or becoming lumpy from use.
Historical sources mention quilts from 16th century England, but as far as I know there are no items left from that time. From what I learned from experts I can say that the first quilts which have survived until today are bed coverlets from the 17th century showing some embroidery.
Pieced (so called "patchwork") and appliqué quilts were not very common in England before the second half of the 18th century.
The earliest pieced quilts not used as bed covers, however, date from India (6th-9th century) and from the Middle Ages in Europe (banners, clothes).
Presumably the typical pieced and stitched quilts came to England from India, Persia and China in the 17th century along with the beautifully painted Indian cotton. The typical piecing design was a central medaillon with four related corners, flower motifs and wide borders. A typical ancient Indian motif is the "tree of life", but regularly arranged design elements were also frequent.
The stitching itself was done in three different ways:
- diagonal rows,
- following the outline of the main pattern,
- following an independent pattern.
Since the 17th century, the material of choice was cotton because it could be easily worked with, it was colorful, durable and washable. Cottons were affordable, the block style arrangement was a rational way to go. Leftovers were collected and stitched together. Gradually more sophisticated designs developed. White cotton was used to achieve a more aesthetic effect.
Towards the end of the 18th century printed fabrics came into use in England and roller printing allowed an increase of production. Prices were reduced, cotton was more widely available which encouraged quilters to try out something new, to experiment with designs, motifs and patterns.
Around 1870 the sewing machine was invented and allowed to manufacture larger overall designs, squares, borders, the log-cabin-block and also the "crazy quilt", the ultimate in style but hardly a functional cloth. From now on a person who created a quilt also followed artistic goals.
The process of piecing, sewing and quilting a bedcover was no longer only a work of a circle of friends or family members to meet family needs; more and more quilts were made to also reflect the love and creativity of the individual artist who made it: quilts became selfportraits. Sometimes this was also an emancipatory act. Women leading a hard life of working on a farm and at home showed with their beautifully crafted quilts their knowledge, ideas, dreams, courage, perfect control, nurture, sensibility, creativity, introspection and action, an unbreakable will.
This is true for example for the famous American Amish women who created quilts in a stunning special design with unprinted cotton fabrics. Their characteristics are the special naive choice of bright, rich, contrasting colours and the delicate quilting designs which gave these Amish quilts an aura of intensity. Typical design motifs for piecing are for example the Center Diamond, Bars, the Star in some variations, Four- and Nine-patch designs, Sunshine- and- Shadow-designs, the Log Cabin, squares in the center and in the corners as well as wide, sometimes multiple borders.
For the quilting process Amish women often used circles, fruit and plant motifs. Since Amish women were not allowed to show pride in individual creative expression because of the beliefs and the religious rules of their close-knit community, the relatively inconspicuous quilting was the tolerated opportunity to show inspiration and unconventional thinking.
The Amish had immigrated from Europe during the 18th and 19th century, mainly from Germany, and settled in Pennsylvania first and later also in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri. Amish women learned quilting in the New World from their neighbors whom they called "The English", then gradually developed their own style which mirrors certain elements of their way of living. Some people think that the extensive use of borders in the Amish quilt work represents the boundaries Amish people placed on their own lives: obedience, humility and simplicity and also resignation to God‘s will were expected from each member of the community so that a quiet contentment, "Gelassenheit und Ordnung", could arise in the community as well as in the soul and heart of each individual.
"Amish quilts are masterpieces created by deranged angels." (Jonathan Holstein, Whitney Museum of American Art)
A similar popularity and public acknowledgement have recently been achieved by the quilts of African American women. Their ancestors, most of them working in the fields, in the garden and doing household chores during slavery, like the Amish women were rooted in a strong community with the church as the center of their everyday life. But in contrast to the Amish women most African American women had an important additional source to feed their creativity: music. Many famous African American quilters, male or female, were also very good musicians and singers of spirituals for example. Their quilts also illustrate their musicality : harmonies, contrasts, rhythm, repetition, improvisation, variation on a theme..."Do it as you feel." Therefore African American quilts often show freehand quilting, lively irregularities, the embrace of imperfection and spontaneity.
"When I was a child growing up in Greenville, South Carolina, and Grandmomma could not afford a blanket, she didn’t complain, and we did not freeze. Instead she took pieces of old cloth-patches – wool, silk, gaberdeen, crockersack – only patches, barely good enough to wipe off your shoes with. But they didn’t stay that way very long. With sturdy hands and a strong cord, she sewed them together into a quilt, a thing of beauty and power and culture." (Jesse Jackson, speech to the Democratic Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 19, 1988)
These special elements of historical quilt-art are still being used by quilters all over the world, sometimes in regional or individual variations . In addition a quilt can now be designed as a piece of modern art, as a painting in fabrics so to speak.
The art of quilting and the acknowledgement of a quilt as a work of art have widely been (re)discovered since Jonathan Holstein and others curated the famously acclaimed quilt exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1971.
On that occasion David Shapiro wrote: "Here is a spirit in answer to Rimbaud‘s almost naughty call for women to be poets. They already were."
(The pictures show examples of my work. And: I found much useful information in this book: Patsy and Myron Orlofsky, Quilts in America, Abbeville Press Publishers, 1992)
