It was the rage for white bed coverings that shortened the lives of many old pieced and patched quilts of good colouring. The “Country Contributor” tells of her experiences in dressing up the white beds:
“I remember with regret the quilts I wore out, using them white side up in lieu of white Marseilles spreads. The latter we were far too poor to own; the ‘tufted’ ones had worn out; and I loathed the cheap ‘honeycombed’ cotton things we were forced to use unless we were going to be frankly ‘poor’ and cover our beds with plain patchwork, made up hurriedly and quilted in simple ‘fans’ in plebeian squares, as poor folk who haven’t time for elegant stitches did theirs. So I used the old quilts, making their fine stitches in intricate patterns serve for the design in a ‘white spread,’ turning the white muslin lining up. A beautiful white spread it made, too, I realize now, more fully than I did then, though I now would know much better than to turn the wonderful appliqué stars and flowers and wheels from view. Strange, is it not, that we relinquish so much of life’s best joy and pleasure before we know what actually is good?” This fashion prevails to-day, in some instances insisted upon for sanitary reasons, but it has lost to us many of the finest examples of quilting that existed because where there were no coloured patterns to relieve the white expanse, the quilting had to be perfect. If you have a white quilt treasure it, for competent quilters are no longer numerous and few there are who can reproduce it.
CHAPTER V
How Quilts Are Made
IT IS only in comparatively recent years that many articles of wearing apparel and house furnishings have been manufactured outside the home. One after another, spinning, weaving, shoemaking, candlemaking, tailoring, knitting, and similar tasks have been taken from the homekeeper because the same articles can be made better and cheaper elsewhere. The housewife still keeps busy, but is occupied with tasks more to her liking. Among the few home occupations that have survived is quilting. With many serviceable substitutes it is not really necessary for women to make quilts now, but the strange fascination about the work holds their interest. Quilt making has developed and progressed during the very period when textile arts in the home have declined under the influence of the factory. More quilts are being made at the present time and over a wider area than ever before.
Quilts, as known and used to-day, may be divided into two general classes, washable and non-washable, depending upon the materials of which they are made. The methods for constructing each class are the same, and are so very simple that it seems hardly necessary to explain them.
The name quilt implies two or more fabrics held together with many stitches. Webster defines a quilt as “Anything that is quilted, especially as a quilted bedcover or a skirt worn by women; any cover or garment made by putting wool, cotton, etc., between two cloths and stitching them together.” The verb, to quilt, he defines as “To stitch or to sew together at frequent intervals in order to confine in place the several layers of cloth and wadding of which a garment, comforter, etc., may be made. To stitch or sew in lines or patterns.”
The “Encyclopædia Britannica” is a little more explicit and also gives the derivation of the name, quilt, as follows: “Probably a coverlet for a bed consisting of a mass of feathers, down, wool, or other soft substances, surrounded by an outer covering of linen, cloth, or other material.” In its earlier days the “quilt” was often made thick and sewed as a form of mattress. The term was also given to a stitched, wadded lining for body armour. “The word came into English from old French cuilte. This is derived from Latin culcitra, a stuffed mattress or cushion. From the form culcitra came old French cotra, or coutre whence coutre pointe; this was corrupted into counterpoint, which in turn was changed to counterpane. The word ‘pane’ is also from the Latin pannus, a piece of cloth. Thus ‘counterpane,’ a coverlet for a bed, and ‘quilt’ are by origin the same word.”