QUILTING

QUILTING. A quilt is made by sewing two pieces of cloth together with a padding in between the two layers held in place by stitching that creates a design. The first quilts emerged in ancient Egypt, and the decorative art form traveled to Asia and later to Europe during the Crusades (c. 1100–1300). By 1300, quilting had spread to Italy, where women sewed bed quilts, and from there a long tradition of quilt making developed throughout Europe. Female European immigrants brought their quilting skills to the United States where the art form flourished during the colonial era. American women often created patchwork quilts made from scraps of fabric. Women also participated in quilting bees in which they worked together in groups to sew quilts. African American women began quilting as slaves with scraps from their masters and continued the art form after their emancipation. As Americans migrated west during the nineteenth century, women's quilting patterns reflected their new experiences and carried such names as wagon wheel, log cabin, and North Star. Picture quilts also emerged during this time with designs that looked like pictures sewn onto quilts. Women sewed "friendship" quilts to create an album for special events like weddings and births. The AIDS Memorial Quilt originated in 1987 as a friendship quilt to remember those who died from AIDS. Each panel of the quilt includes the name and date of death of a person who died from AIDS.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cooper, Patricia, and Norma Bradley Buferd. The Quilters: Women and Domestic Art. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press, 1993.

Orlofsky, Patsy, and Myron Orlofsky. Quilts in America. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974.