Getting Scrappy

A lot of folks think of quilting as something relatively new. It often gets associated with hard times when women had to use up every scrap of cloth they had, stitching bits and pieces together to make something new out of something old.

But that's simply not true. Quilting as a craft and an art has a history as old as knitting. Examples of quilted textiles were recorded in Egyptian carvings and on the altars of temples along the Silk Road, that most ancient of trade routes.

The act of quilting is the sewing together of two layers of fabric with a third insulating layer in between. That insulating layers was most often wool in the past but now can be anything from spun plastic (better known as polyester batting) or cotton, sometimes a combination of the two together.

The using-up-scraps idea reaches back to the mid-19th century when the Industrial Revolution took weaving from the home and put it into the factory. In fact, the mass creation of cloth was one of the first mechanized manufacturing processes.

Then in the 1840s, several inventors contributed to the development of the home sewing machine. Now instead of wielding a needle and thread by hand, women could and did stitch their family's clothing on their new machines.

And when you cut pieces of cloth into the shapes you need for clothing, you make scrap. And handy women everywhere, particularly in the U.S., starting stitching those scraps together into patterns (blocks) and then stitched the blocks together. The result is called patchwork, for obvious reasons.

Nowadays, fabric designed and woven especially for quilting is everywhere. But the desire to use up scraps is still very much a part of the DNA of quilters. After I finished by first how-to quilt book, TEACH YOURSELF VISUALLY QUILTING, I had tons of single blocks and scraps left over.

And that use-it-up, don't-waste it philosophy is as much a part of me as my fingerprints. So my first how-to in my Marcia series (dedicated to my Mom) tackles the subject of using up scrap in usual and not-so-usual ways.

This block is the start of the first piece in this series.

And a new book is born.

What fun.