Originally Posted by MTS
I'm going to take a gander and guess that, like crazy quilting, it was a way for upper class ladies to show off their needlework skills. The quilts were still functional, but didn't look as utilitarian as a tied/pieced bed quilt.
Well, I am quite sure there were upper class ladies who did that - but these quilts were also made in rural areas by women of the labouring classes. Sometimes these women in the North of England made a small living for their families with quilting when their husbands were injured at work in the coal mines. In Wales quilters travelled from farm to farm and stayed as long as they needed to finish enough quilts for the farmers family's beds. You can imagine that these quilts were quite simple and didn't show such intricate desgins like the ones made for special occasions. But when you look back in British quilting history it's full of examples for quilts in all classes of society.