History

Quilts tell us far more than how people once arranged fabric. They reveal the materials available to earlier generations, the traditions they carried forward, and the communities in which they lived.

Here, we explore historic quilts, traditional blocks, remarkable makers, and the stories behind familiar techniques. Some histories are well documented. Others have become tangled in folklore, family stories, and assumptions repeated so often they've become accepted as fact.

Browse the articles below and follow whatever catches your curiosity.

Quilt History Archive

• Quilting 250 Years Ago - 6/25/26

• Why Quilters Started in the Middle - 7/2/26

• Baltimore Album Quilts: Scrapbooks Stitched in Fabric - 7/9/26

• The Beautiful Chaos of Victorian Crazy Quilts - 7/16/26

• When Quilting Bees Brought Communities Together- 7/23/26

• When Flour Came Wrapped in Fabric - 8/27/26

• Before it was a Log Cabin Quilt: The History of a Block Built from the Center Out - 9/2/26

• Jane Austen’s Other Work: The Patchwork Coverlet at Chawton - 9/16/26

• The Threads that Connect Us: A History of Embroidery - 10/28/26 (coming soon)