Woman Is A Quilt Essay, Research Paper
Woman Is A Quilt
For millennia adult females through out the universe have spent their & # 8217 ; trim clip & # 8217 ; doing comforters. A comforter is a bed covering or garment, that consists of three beds of cloth ; A top, the batting, and the backing/lining. In Raymond Bial & # 8217 ; s With Needle and Thread He states, & # 8220 ; the first known word picture of quilting is from 3400 B.C. and features an Egyptian Pharaoh have oning a quilted garment & # 8221 ; . ( Bial 18 ) . It is believed cosmetic quilting came to Europe from Asia during the Crusades ( A.D. 1100-1300 ) , because the fabric humanistic disciplines were more developed in China and India so in the West.
& # 8220 ; Until the Industrial Revolution of the 1800 & # 8217 ; s, adult females raised sheep for wool and grew flax and cotton & # 8221 ; . ( Bial 18 ) . From these beginnings were made yarn and cloth for run uping vesture, bed linen and comforters. Because they had to do their ain cloth ; it was a cherished trade good, therefor stitching was an indispensable accomplishment.
Womans of America put their comforters to good usage as heat and wrapper for cherished points in waggons, and traveled West on the Oregon Trail. & # 8220 ; Despite society & # 8217 ; s restraints and many other adversities of innovator life, the adult females managed to craft beautiful comforters & # 8221 ; . ( Bial 20 ) . Settler adult females gathered for & # 8216 ; quilting bees & # 8217 ; , where they would sit around a big comforter frame and talk while sewing ; for many this was the lone societal interaction available.
From the American Civil War to show twenty-four hours, adult females have used comforters as vehicles for recollection, statements for alteration, and creative person
ninety-nine look. Wifes made comforters to give to soldiers or raffled them for charities. Political statements have frequently been depicted, such as, the Slave Chains pattern sewn by Union adult females in protest of bondage. To back up abolishment, “The Women’s Christian Temperance Union used a form called the Drunkards Path in their quilts” . ( Bial 28 ) . Some African americans made Story comforters in recollection of their history and heritage. “The AIDS Memorial Quilt has helped stir public consciousness and concern for those who are sick and who have died from the disease” . ( Bial 44 ) . This affecting Album comforter is a sixteen-ton hodgepodge of three-by-six-foot blocks covering 14 estates ; it’s a really big illustration of political statement quilting.
Quilts are household heirlooms that are a touchable portion of human history. Forms are bequeathed to wining coevalss, and new designs are added as clip Marches on. It & # 8217 ; s popularity stems from utility every bit good as its beauty.
I don & # 8217 ; t retrieve a clip when stitching was non portion of my life. I remember watching my grandmother sitting on a couch, cooing to me in my cot as she quilted. Learning how to run up was like larning how to walk, inevitable. I love the feel of an unfinished comforter in my lap as I manus stitch it. I love planing new and beautiful pieces of utile art, so doing them existent. I give most of them off to household and friends, each one contains love in every stitch.
Plants Cited
Bial, Raymond. With Needle and Thread. Boston New
York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996.
