How is quilting viewed around the world
 

So, the thread on the US Olympic Team Uniforms being inspired by the "American Quilting Tradition" got me thinking. I have seen quilters from other countries, but it seems to be a deep tradition here in the US. It makes me wonder how deep a tradition it is in other countries. Being in the US myself, I rarely hear of other countries who have historical roots in quilting.....so since this is an international site ;) what traditions do the other countries have?

While quilted garments and bedcovers are common around the chilly parts of the world, what was different in American quilting tradition was the piecing and applique. Of course, most of the world now has developed pieced and appliqued quilting movements. The UK had and has a long tradition of whole cloth quilts, many of them quite spectacular.

Bargello designs which were originally done in needlepoint were quite prevalent during the Elizabethan period in England. I know that many of us on the board just love to see Bargello Quilts!!

Here in Spain, quilting is not a traditional craft. Knitting, crocheting and embroidery are usual with strong traditional roots. Since ten years ago the patchwork, as quilting is known here, is trendy. Shops, local and on-line, are settling but the notions and fabrics are expensive, imported.

I'm a fairly new quilter but the handquilting has hooked me!!

I am assuming that "patchwork" quilting was what American quilting contributed to the art. The early settlers had to purchase all of their fabric from the "old country" before the textile industry was established in the "new world". The woman made the most of every scrap of fabric that was not made into clothing. They probably also used any usable scraps or leftovers from the garments they made to make quilts. Producing fabric in the home was a long and strenuous project. It might involve carding wool that you first had to shear from a sheep and wash before it was ready to weave into cloth. Home weaving required a loom and space to set it up. Growing and processing cotton or linen to make cloth was equally as labor intensive. Not a scrap of fabric would be wasted.

Like in Spain, quilting is not a traditional craft here either. Notions and fabrics are expensive, they all have to be imported. People call it patchwork here too or they just say 'blanket'.......

I used to do a lot of swaps Internationally and found there are many quilters world wide. But maybe quilting itself wasn't known in some Countries for eons, maybe only recently.

My SIS sister lives in Italy and she asked me to make a baby quilt for her. I was surprised when she told me that they don't have quilts in Italy, at least not where she is.

Here in Germany quilting isn't a traditional craft either, but today we have quite a few quilters here. As far as I know it started to become a hobby in the early 80th and the interest is still increasing. We don't have judged shows here like you have in US but from time to time you can find calls for entries for a competition under a special theme. I have always been very interested in the British quilt history and I have read several books about that.

I'd say it's the same in Sweden. I have a book on the history of quilting. It talks about Sweden and Scandinavia but not for traditional quilts. I guess we used wool and linen more than cotton?
In Sweden embroidery was always big. We have traditional clothing from different parts of Sweden which is often quite embellished.

http://holomorkohbf.se/hbf/?page_id=197

We have quilting stores but the prices on fabrics and quilting related haberdashery are way, way higher than in the States. I buy most of my fabric from the fabric shack. Even though they charge a shipping fee of $18, it's still much cheaper than in Sweden. A fat quarter in Sweden usually goes for about $8-$10.

Hi Mariatherese, the tradicional sweden clothing is gorgeous!! and I buy the fabrics on line in Fabric shack too!!!

Fabric shack are the best. They used to include a small gift in their packages and I miss that. I have a wonderful ruler I got once which is both metric and imperial units. Another time you'd get a pack of needles or possibly a measuring tape. Sorry for the OT. :)

Wow...this thread is very interesting...funny how I assumed Quilts were always made everywhere.

This thread is very interesting. I went to a quilt show in PA, and there were a lot of quilts from all over the world. There is a group in Israel that exhibited their quilts at the show, and they were a very talented group.
Would love to hear more about quilts from other countries.

It is also interesting to note that in some places the spread of quilting as a hobby started in the 80's....which coincidentally was when the internet started. I am sure there is some correlation of the ease with which we communicate internationally and the spread of traditionally "local" hobbies.

Love to hear more, it is wonderful to see how each country adds it's own twist on the different hobbies.

And to you ladies without good selection of fabrics and notions, could there be an opportunity there? Like what Jenny Doan did with Missouri Star Quilt Co?

Why is fab so expensive in Europe.......most is milled in China or some other third world country then imported here....so why not shipped there too.......is clothing more expensive too?

I think most notions are also " made in China"

Have you also noticed most of our Quilt books are printed on China too!

Geri, it really depends on how that country sets it's tariffs, the taxes on import/export. some European countries are not as "generous" to imports than the US is.

Australia and New Zealand pay a premium price on fabrics also similar to the high Swedish costs. My great grandmother by marriage was born in 1868 in Italy. She made quilts all her life but out of the fabric left over from clothing.. large family not much money lived through seriously tough times.. you didn't waste a thing so they made blankets (quilts) for the family when clothing was no longer good enough to pass down. My mom made them out of flour sacks she would embroider on them then make them into table clothes and blankets.

Well, for Sweden there's the tax thing. For the person transporting and selling commodities to make a profit, first all social fees and taxes needs to be paid for. That is the main reason in most cases. I'd say that somewhere around 60-75% of all incomes for the sales person goes to tax. And on top of that there's the sales tax of a whopping 25%. It's just crazy... They've also found through bench-marking that Swedish shop owners expect more profit than there European counter parts which means that they try to sell things for as high price as possible instead of trying to get a good turnaround. It's almost impossible to get rich in Sweden on your paycheck so I guess that this is the result... There's almost no differentiation in income... I have a masters in engineering, I work in international projects and have people reporting to me. I earn perhaps 20-30 percent more than an unskilled worker in the manufacturing industry. But then, I also pay a larger percentage in tax... so the worker who might pay 33% taxes... mine are somewhere above 40%. It has become a little bit better in the last 8 years... but this year is election year. And there are silly, silly commercials from the unions on youtube... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqgMIRF7acw

I'll get off my soap box now. :o

Well GeriB, there aren't a lot of shops in the diferente cities of Spain, in Madrid (3 million hab.) are only 6 or 7 actually quilting-oriented.
The imported fabrics and notions are charged a lot: a charm pack from Moda (I love them) for example is twice the price here 18-20 dollars, the yardage 20 dollars/yr.
The "patchwork" here is a hobby, a very expensive hobby, not a way of life and a very lively tradition as in USA, Some primary schools there teachs quilting, isn't it? (awww, sorry for my awful grammar...:hunf:).

Quilting here in the United States is also expensive for those who shop in the LQS, which I do since I really like the feel of the fabric. I have had people at work want a quilt, I will not quilt them but I will help and show them. They are very shocked on how much it cost.

I am in the UK and have taught myself to quilt over the last 6 years or so , goods are expensive here , fabric around 10 pounds (15 doll) a yard and notions the same , but I import from the US as even with postage and a whopping 20% import tax it is still cheaper than buying locally .

FABRIC 101

"Made in China" is just that. Produced there. It is shipped to the U S . International wholesale fabric Buyers head to Quilt Market (trade show) twice a year in the United States. The quilt fabric, notions, books,patterns, etc. Companies are located here. The fabric mfgr. Source out the actual manufacturing of their brand to mills in China, Korea, Indonesia (batiks) . Ship it to the U S and back out to the stores that buy stock for their shop, etc. International Buyers swarm international Quilt Market in Houston every fall and wherever Market is held in Spring. I think a lot of us on this board would be surprised to hear this. International buyers from all over the world attend Quilt Market.

The fabric mills ship the quilt fabric ROT. (Rolled on tube - means it is rolled on a tube that is the length of the WIDTH of the fabric). Once received at the warehouse, only then will it be folded and rolled onto the bolts as we know them. Clothing manufactures, etc buy fabric ROT...Not bolted, btw.

So, a shop in the UK or Australia is buying their fabric from the United States fabric vendors. The costs associated to shipping is part of the price of goods.

You just cant walk in off the street in China to buy from the mill. Moda, Hoffman, Timeless Treasures, etc. ALL manufacture their fabric overseas. It takes about 3 MONTHS to manufacture and ship the final goods once the designs and final coloring (strike offs) are "approved" for manufacturing. About 6 months from design concept to ship to stores.

Sandy

Very interesting thread. Nice to hear from quilters around the world.

What an extremely interesting thread - I love it !!
Here are some links to UK Patchwork and Quilting History !!

http://www.janeausten.co.uk/jane-austens-quilt/

http://www.quiltersguild.org.uk/lear...hwork-quilting

http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/q/quilting-and-patchwork/

Regards, Dot.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~kakeand2/page2.html

http://planetpatchwork.com/passtvq/tvq26/england.htm

DottyD---thanks for those links. I'm especially fascinated with the Jane Austen quilt and Rosalee Clark's link.

Sandygirl, thanks for spelling it out so clearly. My Fabric 101 professors in college spent half a semester teaching us that exact thing.

Australia has a big quilting population and their own designs that are unlike those I find in the US or UK. I have family living there, and have subscribed to an Australian on-line quilting magazine for years. Their work is really unique so it must be grounded in traditions, or so I'm thinking. I've also corresponded with a quilter in New Zealand who was quite keen on the craft of quilting, and seemed to have a lot of friends who quilted, but it didn't give me a sense of the tradition in the country as a whole. I lived in England, and quilting is quite prominent over there, especially hand quilting, or so I found at the time (1980's). Both England and Australia put on big quilt shows regularly, so there must be interest. That's all from my own perspective, of course, and not "written" anywhere.

I remember seeing Priscilla Bianchi from Guatamala on Simply Quilts years ago and she said no one quilted in her country and she has since tried to promote quilting there ...
<cite class="vurls">http://www.priscillabianchi.com/</cite>

Hmmmm...maybe a career change for me? Just kidding! Glad that you understand what I was trying to explain.

Sandy

You might find this interesting if you didn't see the links in another thread on this forum:

http://www.collectionsaustralia.net/...6aabd33774da43

http://www.collectionsaustralia.net/nqr/wendy.php

I notice Pakistan and Bangladesh are also countries of origin for a lot of fabric I see in the shops these days. This worries me a bit as I know from my needlepoint and cross stitch days that a lot of the dyeing chemicals and processes used with fibres are banned in western countries (and then there's the sweatshop factor). We had a large manufacturer of needlepoint canvases here in Australia but they were forced to closed down due to environmental concerns.

Hopefully the mfgrs. are good stewards of the environment in those countries. I know that a few of the Batik producers follow environmentally safe practices in the production of their goods.

Sandy

I wouldn't say quilting is particularly new in Scotland, but it's not the biggest creative art. Traditionally Scots have always relied on 'cottage industries', but these were usually associated with the surfeit of wool, particularly in the Highlands and Islands, famous for wool yarn and of course, tweed.

Re the price of fabric, it's also supply and demand. There's only around 15-20 quilt shops in the entire country (population of just over 5 million), so our quilt shops can't command the bulk orders that lead to the massive discounts you gals enjoy. Our fabric is also more expensive than England :( - currently £14/$23 a metre for flannel....

I have seen quilts made in China and they are very intricate and beautiful. Probably not for use on beds, but more for wall hangings.

Don't believe they teach quilting although it would certainly be conducive to the subject of math with the different angles degrees. Has helped my little niece with her math and they are amazed when she says she used a ruler to cut a certain angle degree. One of her teachers wanted her to bring her ruler to school. Her mother explained that because of the cost of the ruler she didn't want it to become lost at the school. She sent the teacher an email with some photos of the ruler. her mother told the teacher where she could purchase the ruler.

Thank you Tessagin for explain it, I misunderstood then. I see you're fron Corpus TX, My father, a lot of years ago, in the fifties, worked as captain in Oil Tanker ships for an US company in Corpus before I was born!.