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Ask the experts - patchwork shopping bag
With a lifetime of experience under her belt, this week's expert Vera Palmer shows how to put patchwork to ethical use.
The Patchwork and Quilting Industry is now a world-wide multi-million dollar enterprise but it had very different origins.
When America was being opened up the women needed to provide clothing and bedding for the family without much money and very few shops.
When clothes wore out and had been patched to the limit they were cut up to provide patchwork quilts for the beds.
On long wagon trains or during the dismal winter months this gave the women a hobby that was necessary, useful and social.
The women would gather into 'quilting bees' around a quilting frame or table and lay out the pieces of the quilt to be tacked and quilted while gossiping and singing.
A young betrothed woman would collect several quilts into her bottom drawer – the final one would be the very special 'wedding quilt'.
A great many names of the patterns reflect their origins, for example Arkansas Star, Texas Rose, Philadelphia Pavement, or religious themes such as Cross and Crown or Crown of Thorns, and many were supposedly used as a code to help slaves escape safely to the more liberal north (for example Road to Jericho or Underground Railroad) by hanging quilts with these patterns outside to indicate 'safe houses'.
English quilting had a very different approach as shapes – such as diamonds, triangles, hexagons – were cut out of paper and the fabric was tacked to these to make the patterns.
'Crazy Quilting' really took off during Victorian times.
All kinds of sumptuous fabrics were used – velvet, silk and cotton – and sewn on to a base fabric and the joins were embroidered over with different stitches and finally embellished with sequins, beads, buttons, lace and ribbons.
Covers were made for tables, checks, chair arms, and even piano legs (the Victorians could be very prudish!).
Today 'Art Quilts' can be sold for hundreds of pounds to be hung on corporate walls, while many quilting groups provide a great many charity quilts each year for hospices, children's homes, premature baby units and retirement homes. All in all – a very pleasurable pastime.
To make a start why not make a simple bag to replace plastic carriers by viewing the video.
Visit our new ask the experts archive here: www.lep.co.uk/experts
Click on the green video icon above right to view the video.
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Email: josie.hill@lep.co.uk or call 01772 838104
Or write to: Josie Hill, Lancashire Evening Post Ltd, Oliver's Place, Fulwood, Preston, PR2 9ZA
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Wednesday 23 May 2012
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