Yep. Me too.

The Facebook poster was probably apply for a police job.

in my experience a comforter is not pieced.

Yup, I agree.

I've read several debates on this subject, some of them rather heated. I appreciate the tenor of this one. My grandmother and my mother have tied many wonderful quilts that are being passed down and loved into rags. I'm in agreement with the thought that comforters are store bought, and I also agree that a comforter is not pieced. I think, for my self, that I lose a blessing by being ultra defensive about if they are quilts, blankets, comforters, etc.

I think a lot of it depends upon what country our ancesters came from as to what they called a "Quilt"

When I was growing up quilts didn't always have batting in them. Old worn out blankets were used for the middle layer and then the Quilt was tied to keep the blankets from shifting.

In the south, anything that had a couple of layers, with our without an "innards" (flannel, blankets, batting), whether tied or sewed was called a quilt. The term "comforter" wasn't seen in our area until sometime around 1970 or 1980. Before that you either had a bedspread, blanket, or a quilt. The quilt was normally the only pieced item. I had never seen a whole cloth quilt until about 15 years ago. I know, they have been in existence for many years, but not down here for the average person.

And....I am always learning new things. I decided to look up when comforters came into existence and instead found a really good article about our craft. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_quilting

And now, I know I really didn't know anything about the history of quilt making. I wonder how often we use our knowledge and come to conclusions based on our own individual lives. Ironically, all my observations were only true for me. lol

I have a dispute with the statement in this article that Canton Historical Society has the oldest whole cloth quilt made in America in their collection, 1786.

Many of you know that my family has donated a pieced, Broderie Perse with applique quilt to to Colonial Williamsburg's Textile Museum. It was made in Virginia by Martha Frances Collier. OUR quilt was dated by that Museum as being from 1780 OR EARLIER.

Mrs. Collier also made a whole cloth quilt that, along with our pieced one, received a Premium award in a fair in Waco, TX in 1874 as being "the oldest quilt in the state at the time and for its many fine stitching designs." Quotes are from a written provenance that accompanied the pieced quilt when my immediate family received it into our care in the mid 1950s. It was written by one of Mrs. Collier's granddaughters who was in her 90s when the quilt passed to us. Both the whole cloth and the pieced quilts were passed through the line to granddaughters who moved to Texas following the Civil War for a period. There may have even been other quilts by this remarkable lady, but we have lost all contact with any but our pieced quilt. As best we can tell I am the fifth generation of 'daughters' to have cared for this pieced quilt.

Just as an interesting side note: Mrs. Collier was married to Capt. Thomas Collier of Portobello Plantation, Yorktown, VA. That homestead was land that is now the secretive government-owned Camp Peary off I-64 at the Colonial Williamsburg exit. I lived just a couple miles from it during my brief time in Williamsburg 2000-2003; felt like hallowed ground through the whole area while I was there.:o

Jan in VA

Wow Jan, what a great family history you have; quilting is in your blood.

Jan, I wonder how you would get Wikipedia updated to show your information? It sure would be nice to have factual information online.