Quilting is a very old form of art where layers of padding and fabric, usually of soft material like wool, are stitched together in patterns or tufted through a thickness to create a beautiful spread of cloth that can be used as mantel, coverlet, curtain, or even as human garment.
The word quilt comes from the Latin ‘culcita', meaning a stuffed sack, but it came into the English language from the French word ‘cuilte'. The origins of quilting remain unknown but the earliest recorded quilted garment can be seen on the carved ivory figure of a pharaoh of Egyptian First Dynasty about 3400 B.C. Archaeologists also discovered a quilted floor covering in Mongolia and dated it between first and second centuries B.C. Historians recorded that quilting, piercing and applique-making were used in garment making and furnishing. There are also a lot of references to quilts in literature and inventories of various estates in the world.
Crusaders brought quilting to Europe from the Middle East in the late 11th century. Quilted garments were popular in the middle Ages. Knights wore them under their armour for comfort, in particular, in the form of ‘aketon' or ‘gambeson' or a ‘doublet'. They also used quilted garments to protect the metal armour from the elements like rain, snow, or sun.
The earliest known surviving bed quilt is one from Sicily. It was dated at around end of the fourteenth century. It is 122" by 106" in size, made of linen and padded with wool, and has a design bearing blocks across its center depicting scenes from the legend of Tristan. It is now being showcased in Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Russia holds the oldest quilted linen carpet found in a Mongolian cave, and now kept at the Archaeology Section of the St. Petersburg Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The first reference to quilts in America is at the end of the seventeenth century in the listing of a household inventory of Salem, a Massachusetts sea captain. None of the early colonial quilts survive. This makes sense when you consider that for the most part in the early colonial period quilts were made from fabric that was salvaged from its previous use. The earliest surviving American quilt is the Saltonstall quilt from 1704.
In the nineteenth century quilt-making flourished especially in the period between 1825 and 1875. As the original colonists had brought quilting from the old world, the settlers who began moving west in the nineteenth century brought the craft with them as well. Eventually, the craft became known in the Great Plains where its wide, open spaces and relative isolation brought forth the idea of the ‘quilting bee'. In a quilting bee women are able to socialize.
Quilts have become popular all over the world that quilted materials are now used not only in ats, garments, fashion, and furnishing but also in architectural works as well like in wall and ceiling panels. Thus, quilting has remained a favourite craft by peoples of various cultures and age around the world.
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