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How to Quilt>Whole Cloth Quilts
Whole Cloth Quilts
One myth about quilting among the immigrants is that only the poor folk made quilts. Turns out, women of wealth and leisure made some elegant quilts – generally whole cloth quilts. Many whole cloth quilts were made of glazed wool with wool batting. These quilts were a way to feature intricate quilting designs that quilters had developed through years of quilting. Patterns for the quilting stitches included feathers, geometric shapes, and figures of animals, ships, people and flowers. More formal whole cloth quilts were made with white cotton fabric using linen as a backing. Usually the quilting designs featured a central design with repeated floral designs or geometric designs surrounding the central design. More skilled quilters took this one step further, and inserted additional batting into some of the design areas, adding emphasis and dimension to the design. Another name for this technique is trapunto. To increase the beauty and intricacy of the quilt, this was accomplished without cutting any fabric. The quilter carefully separated individual threads of the quilt backing and painstakingly stuffed small bits of filling. The most talented of these quilters were able to make a truly two-sided quilt – where you could not tell the front from the back. Quilters today use a variety of fabric to create a whole cloth quilt. For years after I first started quilting, whole cloth quilts were made using 100% cotton - either pure white or off white / muslin. These quilts are beautifully hand quilted in designs similar to those used hundreds of years ago - flowers, vines, animals, people, feathers, etc. In recent years, quilters have turned to hand dyed cloth for whole cloth quilts, sometimes painting a picture or design on the cloth to create a scene or other pattern. Then the quilting design is added, often machine quilted using a combination of stippling (intended to be a background design) and designs that "paint the rest of the picture" of the quilt. Below is a picture of part of a quilt that was made using hand-dyed fabric and has been machine quilted. This quilt uses stippling along side of a quilting outline of a tree branch and leaves.
One was a quilt that was completely hand stitched - including piecing and quilting. The other was a whole cloth quilt - to showcase your beautiful quilting stitches. My only foray into whole cloth quilting was a tiny bread cover I made - to practice hand quilting. I decided that it counted for the once-in-a-lifetime whole cloth quilt I would make :-)
Happy Quilting!
Penny Halgren www.How-to-Quilt.com
©2009, Penny Halgren This article courtesy of http://www.How-To-Quilt.com. You may freely reprint this article on your website or in your newsletter provided this courtesy notice and the author name and URL remain intact.
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