Getting Ready

During the colonial period, women sometimes gathered together for "quilting bees" to make special bedcovers called quilts. Quilts are made of two layers of cloth filled with a soft fiber such as cotton, wool or soft feathers called down. The layers are stitched together with many small stitches.

Because cloth was scarce, colonial women used scraps of wool or linen to decorate the top layer of the quilt. The sewing machine had not yet been invented so all of the stitching was done by hand. The small stitches often added to the beauty of the quilt.

As the art of quilting developed and as more materials became available, people and buildings, plants and animals, as well as geometric shapes became part of quilt designs. Some quilt designs showed historical events or special family occasions and were passed down from one generation to the next as a way to preserve the family history.

Quilting is a popular hobby in the United States today. Many people get involved in quilting classes or clubs while others participate in the creation of quilts to raise awareness for special causes. You can find books and magazines showing quilting designs in bookstores, libraries and fabric stores.

Activity

Design your own quilt or design a group quilt with members of a "quilting bee." Try some of the following:

1. Use graph paper and crayons, markers or colored pencils to create a geometric pattern. Experiment until you find a design or pattern you like.
   
   
2. As a group, decide on a design or pattern that each group member can duplicate. After each person finishes his/her section, glue the completed pieces onto a larger piece of paper leaving equal space between the pieces. Use fine-tipped markers to show "stitching."
   
   
3. Use an old, solid color bed sheet and scraps of material to make a cloth quilt: Create and cut one or more simple shapes from heavy paper. Use these paper shapes as patterns for cutting many similar shapes from the scraps of cloth. Arrange the cut scraps on the sheet to form a design you like. Glue the scraps in place.
   
   
4. Design a quilt using cloth or paper that shows one of your special family occasions. Just as people often use a heart to show love, you can create symbols that show some of the emotion of the occasion. Share your quilt with your family.
   
   
5. Design a quilt that shows a period of American history that is important to you. You might want to add a border to your quilt that shows how that period relates to your life today.

Think More About It
Early quilts used basic geometric shapes to make familiar or significant objects. See if you can use a combination of triangles, squares, and rectangles to make: trees, stars, a person, the sun, a snowflake, a house, a horse, or a church. What other things might a colonial quilt maker want to represent?

Words to know: down feathers, fiber, geometric