Artigianati.com

by Paul Levy

A quilt by Elizabeth Chapman. V&A Images

London: Exhibitions of quilts appear to attract large numbers of visitors, and the Victoria & Albert Museum already has big advance bookings for its just-opened major spring show "Quilts 1700-2010." From a late 17th-century cot cover to Grayson Perry's 1998 computer-generated "Right to Life," with its ambiguous message about abortion, this show covers (with plenty of visual puns to match this verbal one) British quilt-making over three centuries.

"Quilting" means stitching around a stuffing, either enclosing it or giving a raised appearance to the bits between the stitching. This technique isn't confined to textiles meant to cover beds, but can be used for clothing (as shown in the V&A's own English quilted silk satin doublet and breeches, 1635-40), curtains and other hangings. In fact, the technique most of us associate with quilts is patchwork, where (usually) geometrically regular bits of cloth are cut out, and stitched around their edges, often sandwiching the stuffing, to make a square or rectangular bed.......

Read more at  -  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126955722517867637.html?mod=googlenews_wsj