#quilt history

[makereadgrow]

It all started with a reddit post.

No it didn’t. It started when I was 5 and my mom handed me fabric and thread and buttons to keep me busy while she sewed. It started with the Christmas and Easter dresses my grandmother turned out every year without fail. It started with holding tapestries my other grandmother wove. It started with listening to my great-grandmother talk about the quilts city women paid her to finish for them and the rugs she wove on her floor. 

I’ve always said that I had textiles in the blood, as a genetic legacy. While only one of the women who came before me called herself an artist (my maternal grandmother) they all chose textiles as their medium. 

I made my first quilt in middle school, I think. My grandmother spent decades as purely a garment seamstress, working in a suit store and altering prom dresses on the side, sewing for herself and her loved one. She loved clothes and her huge basement was packed with everything she had made herself. She found herself seeking a new challenge. She’d avoided quilting (possibly because her mother was a quilter and they had a complex relationship) but she decided to give it a go. Her first quilt was a pinwheel, pieced by machine and then hand quilted while she recovered from a knee surgery. She let me quilt a block. I decided I’d make a quilt too, pinwheels the same as her. I didn’t have a book, or a pattern, or the internet and she wasn’t there when I started. I cut my triangles mostly by eye, with scissors, on the living room floor. They were big, maybe 10 inches. I sewed them up and wonky is the kindest word I could give them now, but I felt like a genius. I didn’t know you were supposed to quilt it before binding so I bound it, and pinned the layers together. I even quilted some of the squares. And then I slept with it, pinned together for roughly a decade. It was never fully quilted. It wasn’t long enough to cover both my shoulders and feet, but it was the perfect weight for a summer quilt. I wish I knew what had happened to it. 

My second quilt was a whole cloth quilt. I was in grad school. I had the internet, but I didn’t use it. I wanted something the same weight as the first quilt, but long enough to cover my feet. I bound it with satin blanket binding, and quilted a cross, one row up the length through the middle, and one row across the width. I did not read the directions on the batting about how far apart the quilting lines should be. It is now my son’s favorite blanket. It hasn’t fallen apart. 

I did a lot more learning (but not enough) and a lot of growing before I tried quilting again. By this time I was a parent and I had learned the value of measuring and rotary cutting. Again I’d make a pinwheel quilt. I learned how to make half square triangles four at a time. My grandmother passed either shortly before or after I started it and I think of her when I work on it. It took me a long time to make the blocks, it took me even longer to put them together. I thread basted it on the floor. I knew enough not to bind before quilting, but I hadn’t yet learned to start in the center of quilt. I worked around the edges and learned even more. I learned that if I quilt too much my hands hurt, I learned that my spouse will sleep under a quilt left on the couch even if it isn’t finished or bound. I eventually learned I should have started in the middle. I started it in 2019, its 2024 and I’m still slowly quilting the blocks. I bound it eventually because the edges were showing a lot of wear (because my spouse has been sleeping under it). Someday it will be done, but it makes me laugh to know that it is serving its purpose regardless, and has been for years. 

Another chapter in my quilting story. It was roughly 4am and I was sick. Hopped up on every medication known to humankind and scrolling through my phone. I stumbled across a video of someone stitching fabric wrapped around hexagons together by hand. Half a dozen videos later I was sitting at a computer printing out templates onto cardstock paper and digging through the remains of pandemic mask making fabric. I made a coaster, and then I made a pillow. Before I even made it past the fog of flu I started a hexagon quilt. I didn’t plan, but I kept a somewhat cohesive color story. 900+ hexagons later I had a finished quilt top, it took me about a year, and eventually I chose a backing and used my sewing machine to quilt it together, starting from the center working out, binding at the end. And that is the moment that I finally felt like a quilter. 

Its been a while since that night scrolling. I’ve made more quilts, large and small. Not a lot, but enough. I spend a lot of my down time thinking about quilts. When I’m quilting I think about those who came before me, I think about my grandmother’s hands. I think about how intrinsic quilting is to the place I grew up, all the hands that came before my grandmother, and her mother, and the lineage going back through the largely unrecorded history of poor women in rural Appalachia.  

Getting back to reddit. The other day I was scrolling through and was struck by this quilt posted on reddit by u/karenosmile. 

Classic and yet it is also intrinsically modern.Chaotic and random, but also a repeated pattern of the same simple block. It brought to mind quilts I’d seen while looking through museum collections online (which is a delightful activity for slow afternoons). I went back through my links and the collections again, looking at other examples of quilts that feature that classic ageless block - the half square triangle, also known as the HST. I wanted to know what made that quilt on reddit feel so modern.

The oldest quilt I found in my brief review that felt like it had the same feel as the reddit quilt was this quilt from the 1840s. It is orderly, but combining different sizes of half square triangles. I would not see this as old fashioned if I saw this quilt posted online tomorrow. 

The next quilt has been printed out and taped to my wall for months. It was made in 1898 by one Lura, for another Lura. Another lineage. This quilt only has one size of HST and they are orderly arranged to create strong diagonal lines of color across the quilt. 

Coming to the 20th century we have another quilt* that uses half square triangles of different sizes, however this one uses blocks of HSTs arranged and combined with large white triangles to form yet another larger HST. 

Ultimately I think the thing that sets the original reddit quilt apart is the scattered variety of block sizes and the seemingly random placement of the blocks. The varying size abandons the strict repetition of the museum pieces while maintaining the simple geometry of the block itself. 

*Link may not work as it is from Jstor

[bevanne46]

5,000 years ago, the Chinese learned to make breathable, lightweight and comfortable quilts from silkworm silk. Thess videos shows how they are made. It's very fascinating!

[queersatanic]

Happy birthday, Duane.

[explore-blog]

In the autumn of 1883, a paper in the nation's capital reported that "an Iowa woman has spent 7 years embroidering the solar system on a quilt" — to teach astronomy in an era when women could not attend college. Her story.

[tanuki-kimono]

Great example of everyday noragi (work clothes, worn by farmers for ex.)​ from Taisho period. Note the makisode sleeve shape, offering freedom of mouvement!

You can see the close-up of the weave, made from asa (bast-fiber like hemp or linen) and kamiyori (twisted paper thread​). Despite its "rugged" materials, weave is delicately interlocked with regular black stripes.

The coat also presents geometrical sashiko (white quilting), both reinforcing easily worn areas (collar, hems, inner center back), and decorating the garment.

PSA for writers: please please please don't put characters doing manual labour in "silk" kimono. I'll be forever grateful ;)

[piizunn]

butch/twink

2024

quilted white scrap fabric text on a black shirt that reads “BUTCH TWINK”

[the-cricket-chirps]

Rebecca Davis (American)

Star of Lemoyne Quilt

ca. 1846

[fashionsfromhistory]

Sashiko Jacket

1850-1899 (Meiji Era)

Japan

Sashiko is a quilting technique that uses a running stitch to reinforce and prolong the life of a textile or to join together recycled pieces of cloth into a new garment. Japanese farmers used the technique to create warmer and more durable fabrics, and decorative sashiko stitching developed from this practical function. This robe’s embroidered design is dominated by three variations on the pattern of interlocking circles, called shippō-tsunagi. The bottom band features a design of waves.

The MET (Accession Number: 67.172.1)

[magicfemme]

“Still loved."

AIDS QUILT SERIES | VIEW THE QUILT

[makereadgrow]

Broken Dishes

I enjoyed the rambling post about personal quilt history and I saw another pattern in my meanderings yesterday that I wanted to connect back through history, albeit more briefly (in theory.

The Postcards from Sweden quilt is currently hugely popular (and free!) Designer Kelly Liddle was inspired by a simple postcard found in an IKEA store. The pattern is essentially the classic quilt block called broken dishes, which is made up of our friends the half square triangle. The Postcards from Sweden abandons more traditional use of light and dark contrasts in favor of bright fabrics which have a lot of visual interest but little contrast.* 

The maker of this Broken Dishes quilt made with silk fabrics around 1920 uses fabrics with a similar tone across the center of the quilt and it has deep plush quilting that almost succeeds as disguising the classic HST. The maker likely began in the center of the quilt, and added blocks around the sides later on, perhaps due to miscalculating the size of the finished piece. The final result is opulent and I would LOVE to run my hands over the contrasting texture of the silk and the quilting lines.

This cotton version of the same block incorporates more contrast, but using dark where other quilters might use the light. Made around 1930 it feels very modern with its deep black border and vibrant hues.

This undated broken dishes quilt has the same wide border, but a cooler color pallete combined with a larger block size makes for a more soothing experience for the viewer.

*One way to look at contrast in quilts or in other textile arts is to convert an image to black and white.

[victusinveritas]

The Advocate, 1988. From cartoonist Gerard Donelan.

[artschoolglasses]

Bed Cover, English, 1786

From the Victoria & Albert Museum

[gummyorange]

This is a dumb idea and way too long but…

Okay, so as a quilter I’ve had a lot of time to sit and think. I love hand sewing and the history of creating things from nothing and using every last scrap of fabric. Another thing I enjoy is the history of fashion, fabric and of course quilts. Which made me come across a museum page about war-time quilts. Specifically the ones made in the 1800s. These quilts are made up from soldier uniforms and that got me thinking about the uniforms of L’Manburg.

The fabric I imagine would most likely be wool or linen. These fabrics were the cheaper, and easier to produce in history for most people. Wool would most likely be their coats, felted hats, while linen would be their shirts, pants and such. Wool is still expensive but was historically cheaper than cotton and warmer. They’d have a lot of uniforms for a lot of soldiers. Maybe two for each along with wool blankets, and other similar items.

What if, during Pogtopia, soldiers were cutting up their old uniforms to make blankets and quick, basic quilts to stay warm in the ravines? What if they were dismantling their last bits and pieces of L’Manburg to survive the cold, damp weather in the ravine? What if as the soldiers loyal to Wilbur were teaching Tommy how to sew? Trying to protect him from Wilbur’s declining mental state? What if Tommy bonded over this love of sewing but thought he lost it in exile?

Maybe Phil tried to teach Wilbur when he was young but he was too easily frustrated by the process. Seeing Tommy sew in Pogtopia just brings Wilbur bad memories. Maybe he yells and lashes out at Tommy, making Tommy hide his passion, suppressing it.

Following this line of thought I could imagine Phil and Technoblade also being the sort to sew, knit, and quilt. The area they’re in is extremely cold. Wool would be easy to produce in the summer or bought from villages. During snow storms and blizzards I imagine them sitting by the fire talking and sewing together.

It’s not until Tommy escapes his exile that he sees Technoblade and Phil sewing. He slowly picks up sewing again, using it to heal and begins adding embroidery to his quilts. He sits on the floor with Technoblade and Phil learning how to sew and make something just for himself.

It takes him a long time to heal. Quilting is a slow process with a lot of mistakes, backpedaling, undoing and redoing things that seem pointless in the moment until he looks at his hard work and realizes he’s grown. Sure, he drops it for a while but he always comes back to it when he feels like he wants to make something nice for himself and his friends.

One day, far from the SMP with Tubbo and his sheep Mareep, he finds himself quilting again. It turns old, painful memories into something that warms and comforts Tubbo and himself.

[uwmspeccoll]

Decorative Sunday

GEE’S BEND QUILTS

Since the 19th century, the women of Gee’s Bend in southern Alabama have created stunning, vibrant quilts. In 2002, folk art collector, historian, and curator William Arnett organized an exhibition entitled "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," which debuted at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and later travelled to a dozen other locations across the country, including our own Milwaukee Art Museum (September 27, 2003 - January 4, 2004). This exhibition brought fame to the quilts, and Arnett's foundation Souls Grown Deep Foundation continues to collect and organize exhibitions for Gee’s Bend Quilts.

The images shown here are from Gee’s Bend: The Women and Their Quilts, with essays by John Beardsley, William Arnett, Paul Arnett, and Jane Livingston, an introduction by Alvia Wardlaw, and a foreword by Peter Marzio. The book was published in 2002 by Tinwood Books, Atlanta, and published in conjunction with the 2002 exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. It includes 350 color illustrations and 30 black-and-white illustrations. The dust jacket notes observe:

The women of Gee’s Bend - a small, remote, black community in Alabama - have created hundreds of quilt masterpieces dating from the early twentieth century to the present. . . . [The] quilts carry forward an old and proud tradition of textiles made for home and family. They represent only a part of the rich body of African American quilts. But they are in a league by themselves. Few other places can boast the extent of Gee’s Bends’s artistic achievement, the result of geographical isolation and an unusual degree of cultural continuity. In few places elsewhere have works been found by three and sometimes four generations of women of the same family, or works that bear witness to visual conversations among community quilting groups and lineages.

Our copy is a gift from our friend and benefactor Suzy Ettinger.

View more Black History Month posts.

View more Decorative Sunday posts.