South African Quilts
With a warm climate, you would not imagine quilts being necessary to keep
warm. However, they are used to depict the history and the culture of South
Africa.
There is, for example, a quilt made by Phina Nkosi, who works with the
Zamani Quilting Sisters in Soweto. This group formed to try and help women
who not only had to live in a racist society, but also a very sexist one.
This group worked on the principle of self help, and established a women’s
resource center. This quilt includes portraits of women she believed were
part of the struggle for freedom in South Africa. The quilt is hung in the
MSU Museum Accession, and was bought in conjunction with the South African
Cultural Heritage Project.
The United States of America and Canada
Perhaps the most well known quilting is from this region of the world. In
the northern states and Canada, quilting has been part of a very strong
tradition in domestic arts and crafts, ensuring American and Canadian
families had both beautiful and functional fabrics in their homes.
However, it is most definitely the stuff of myth and legend that quilting
was commonplace, either for practical or decorative reasons, in the early
colonial times.
The original settlers worked hard and long, and there was little time spare
for the artistic quilting that we mistakenly link to these early days. In
these days, plain cloth and wadding would have been used to reflect the
restrictive religious beliefs of many of the settlers for whom decoration
was considered inappropriate.
These early colonial women would have to weave their own cloth, and
undertake all the other domestic tasks – and apart from the fact that the
men were considered above such humble work, they tended to be outside in the
fields, tending the big livestock, and building or fencing.
Women’s lives were hard, and initially often lonely. They had poor access to
civilization, often settling in isolated areas, with near neighbors possibly
miles away.
Only later on, as families and farms became more established, and the
community facilities developed, were women able to have the time and leisure
to quilt. Even then it was largely in the better off homes where domestic
help was brought in, that the lady of the house would do the decorative
quilting.
Of course, women settlers would bring with them the skills learned from
their families, so a variety of styles and patterns were imported via them
to America. Nevertheless, there was only a very limited amount of fabric
available in the early days, and it wasn’t really until the mid 1800’s that
there was fabric available for quilting to be affordable. Prior to this
date, most families used blankets – of varying quality and warmth, but
nevertheless cheaper than quilts.
The colonial style underwent resurgence in the twentieth century. The styles
of houses, of furniture, and the soft furnishings, all became very popular,
both in America, and abroad. The idea of ‘old colonial style quilts’ was
part of the marketing done by magazines and manufacturers, but the quilts
they were advertising were definitely made much later than they suggested,
probably from the 1850s.
About this time, the manufacturing industry was becoming established, and
women in America found they could buy materials. Those who had sheep for
wool and grew cotton, could get the raw materials made up into fabric, and
no longer had the hard, and time consuming job of weaving and fabric making.
This gave women more time for other things, among them of course, was
quilting. So this is really the point in time where American quilt making
really became a reality.
Patterns became available, and could be bought in magazines or in stores,
but American women enjoyed using the patterns that their friends and family
used, and pattern sharing was the norm, rather than buying new ones. These
patterns became the traditional American quilting patterns that are still
famous today.
Quilting was not an easy hobby for many women. Space in the homes of the
majority was limited. The quilting frames were generally large enough for at
least 6 women to work at, and initially were home made.
Most homes didn’t have spare space for the frame, so it would both be put
together and then taken apart as needed, or connected to a pulley system and
hoisted up to the ceiling when not being used.
The quilting bees that enabled women to get together were limited to the
number of people who could fit in the available space around the frame. |
