by
Terry Crawford
Original Article Written:
September 07, 2009
Wow, talk about an article opening up a Pandora's Box! This stage of
the quiltmaking process is extremely important both today and years gone by. Do it thoroughly and
the rewards are so satisfying and unimaginable. Rush the planning and
not thinking it through can prove utterly disastrous. And devastating.
So great care should be given to the planning of a quilt.
This was especially true in the past, which is the focus of this article.
While there are many ideas that are still good, it is easy to see that some
of the techniques and methods used are now outdated, tedious, and made much
simpler via the utilization of modern technology.
Have you ever built a new
house? Or remodeled? Or redecorated a room? Much thought is
given to the end result. How everything is placed is vital to your
plan and, hopefully, well thought out. Once the project is finished,
you more than likely thought, "I wish I had put that there and this over
here..." and on... and on... and on! It is inevitable:
Experiencing the process makes one wiser! I have been blessed in that
I have had the privilege of building four homes. I would like to say
that it was perfect, but, alas, they were not. I designed each and
every one of them and yet at the end, I discovered ways that I could have
improved my design (my builders hated me, as I would change plans during
construction). With each experience, however, I became wiser.
Now I sit in my fourth home and see a couple of things I wish I had done
differently, but overall, most of it was planned according to prior
knowledge gained.
The same can be said of
quilting, past and present. And a plan that works for one person may
not necessarily work for another. It may look appealing when you
decide to copy (legally, of course) a pattern, but once finished, you may
realize that the colors just do not fit your style or purpose. So part
of this learning process is in discovering your own personal tastes and
being able to adapt your own style into your planning. Learning this
valuable lesson can be a useful tool in preventing any disappointments in
the finished product. It simply takes too long, too much energy, and
too much expense to haphazardly complete a quilt.
Several considerations were given to
the planning of a quilt long ago: Purpose,
Size, Color(s),
Layout, Borders,
Technique(s), and the Quilting.
Purpose
Determining
the purpose of the quilt was first and foremost! Was this to be a bed
quilt, a bed curtain (the curtains hanging down from a tall four-poster
bed), a comforter, a window curtain, a gift, or what? Knowing the
purpose was critical in the planning!
Size
The size of the quilt was the next consideration,
after establishing the purpose. Beds today
(Quilting Passion provides a guideline of
current bed sizes.) are not the same sizes of the beds of yesteryear.
Quilts for full-sized beds were anywhere from 72" -
86" wide, depending on how far over the edge the quilter wanted the quilt to
hang. If the bed was closed at the foot, the length of 84" was ample,
but if the foot was open, then 90" was better. If the quilt was to act
as a
counterpane (unusually
ornamental), too, then it was generally made even longer; 96" if the
pillows were to be on the outside and 108" if the counterpane covered them.
The same lengths were also used for smaller beds,
with the difference being just in the width. For twin beds, widths
could have been as narrow as 62" - 64", but this did not allow any excess
for "tucking". If the quilts were "tucked", then the widths were a
more practical width of approximately 68".
If the bed was an antique bed, these measurements
may not have been suitable at all. The very old four-poster beds (old
even back then! I am referring to the antiques of the antiques!) were
often hand-made or even made by local woodworkers and/or cabinet makers.
Because of this, many of the sizes varied, more often leaning to being much
larger than the regulation size.
Larger beds, which we refer to as "queen-size" and
"king-size" were not even heard of. Anytime a larger bed was made, it
was considered to be non-standard and had to be custom made.
Color(s)
The colors a quilter selected for a quilt were
tantamount (significant) to the planning. A quilter either chose
colors that were appealing to her (very rarely a "him" long ago!) or, if the
quilt was a gift or to be used as decor, then the colors were selected based
upon that specific purpose.
It is important to remember that the number
of colors and prints were very limited long ago, especially compared to
today!
Layout
Determining the layout of a quilt was a difficult
stage in the planning long ago. No advanced computer technology to aid
the design, no printed graph paper (with nice colored pencils), and, in
fact, paper was not even economical to use.
But, the quilters persevered! Their ideal way
to plan a quilt was to cut pieces of colored paper in an imitation of the
design of the blocks and border and lay them out on the bed. They
would arrange the blocks this way and that until they found the most
attractive layout to their eyes. However, quilters were not usually
apt to have colored paper on hand, so although the plan was excellent for
that time period, it was not very practical. Newspapers were readily
available, and the printed type gave a hint of a printed calico. This
was an easy method to get an idea of the effect of the blocks in the design
without the color and quilters would usually first cut 12" x 12" squares
(about a dozen of them) to see the plan in action. They could, at this
point, choose how far apart to put the blocks, try to plain blocks (simply
by leaving gaps), try setting the blocks
on-point, and
other ideas. Other popular sizes to cut the blocks were 5", 9", and
18". Much trial and error was involved. Tedious and
time-consuming, to say the least.
Borders
The borders were a huge consideration because the
eye-appeal of the quilt as a whole depended so much on the borders.
Some of the very finest of quilts were made with a
very wide border of plain white, beautifully hand-quilted (of course) in an
interesting (and sometimes more complex) quilting
pattern. These wide borders were usually the width of the whole
portion of the quilt that hung down over the sides of the bed. If a
quilter chose to be more creative she (or he) would include a pieced block
in each of the four corners.
If a quilter chose not to
use a very wide border, there were other options. One option was to
put a narrow pieced border at the line where the quilt would drop over the
sides of the quilt, then again at the very edges of the quilt. This
left a spatial area in between in which to show off quilting patterns and
their beautiful stitchery. In order to plan the borders during the
layout stage of the plan, quilters would cut 2" - 3" wide strips of
newspaper and pin them along the bed: Just over the sides and also at
the edges. At this point in the planning stage, the quilter
could decide whether to leave the space between the two borders plain and
simply quilt it, or they could cut more strips of newspaper approximately 5"
wide and pin that midway between the other two borders. This would
show yet another effect the borders could have on the appearance of the
quilt.
If the quilt utilized appliquéd blocks instead of
pieced blocks, another option definitely became apparent (although this
option could also have been considered with pieced blocks): That of
running vine patterns (or floral, for that matter) in the quilting space or
even appliquéing vines (or florals) into the borders.
Sometimes the borders were simply strips of the
fabrics used in the quilt, usually varying the widths of the strips to make
the quilts more striking. During some periods, local shops would carry
a variety of bias bindings that were sometimes used as a border solution.
These bindings usually came in different materials, such as: Lawn,
batiste, percale, glazed chintz, etc. If the quilts were hand-sewn (as
most were), the type of fabric selected was very important: A fabric
like percale was more loosely woven and easier to sew through than, say, a
heavy fabric like chintz. Lawn or batiste were very easy to sew
through, since they are soft and have a looser weave, too; making the needle
quite easy to go through. Of course, with the advent of the sewing
machine, fabric selection became less rigid, because the machine was doing
all the work! Sewing has been around for approximately 20,000 years,
but the earliest hint of a sewing machine did not occur until 1755 and the
first American built machine came about in 1834 (Inventors).
Technique(s)
There were only two primary techniques that quilters
chose from: Pieced or appliqué!
Appliqué has been around for quite some time, but
the exact date is unknown. What is known, however, is that appliqué
was prevalent on African garments as early as the 18th century.
For what it is worth, appliqué is my favorite
technique. Button-hole, to be
specific!
Quilting
The
quilting stage of planning is where the quilter had an opportunity to
showcase his/her skills. For the intent of this article, the quilting
aspect was a huge consideration in the layout. Often times, the layout
predetermined the quilting patterns or vice-versa.
Summary
As you can see, the planning of a
quilt was not such a fast and easy task. I am so thankful for all of
my modern tools. I have been asked if I design all of my quilts using
quilting software,
and the answer is "no". In fact, most of my quilts are born on printer
paper, free-handed. I have, many times, drawn a sketch of a quilt idea
on a restaurant napkin! Once I have a rough draft, I usually then copy
it onto graph paper, so that I can get a better idea of the proportions (I
do not draw very straight lines!). The best time for me to drag out
the software is if I want to design a new block or use pre-existing block
combinations or I am simply in a hurry.
Hopefully, this article has been
interesting and informative.
Comments to this article are definitely appreciated!
Other historical quilting articles are available:
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09/08/09 12:35 AM
