Crafts

Quilting

Citation Formats

General Reference

Home, Crafts and Hobbies Atlas. "Quilting." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://home.interactiveatlas.org/crafts/quilting.

APA Style

Home, Crafts and Hobbies Atlas. (n.d.). Quilting. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://home.interactiveatlas.org/crafts/quilting

BibTeX

@misc{home,craftsandhobbiesatlas-quilting,
  author = {Home, Crafts and Hobbies Atlas},
  title = {Quilting},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://home.interactiveatlas.org/crafts/quilting},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Stitching layers of fabric and batting into one warm whole, usually a pieced top, a filling and a backing. An ancient garment technique that became, especially in America, a social craft and a folk art: the quilting bee, the patchwork block and the memory quilt all carry family and community history in cloth.

Facts

Craft Class

Fiber and Textile 1

Earliest Evidence (Circa)

The earliest known quilted garment appears on a carved ivory figure of an Egyptian pharaoh, circa 3400 BC 1

Origin

Quilted bedding only became common in Europe after crusaders returning from the Middle East brought the practice home in the twelfth century; the English word quilt itself descends from the Latin culcita, a stuffed cushion or bolster, first recorded in this sense in England in the thirteenth century. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections