BRITISH PATCH WORK

Often we use the terms ‘patchwork’ and ‘quilting’ interchangeably, but they are distinct crafts with different, although linked, histories. It isn’t known for sure when patchwork – the joining together of different fabric fragments to make a new piece of cloth – began in Britain, but it has been established that it was being done in the early eighteenth century.

It is frequently assumed that patchwork was a craft borne out of thrift – a way to create a new object from carefully saved leftovers and pieces of good material salvaged from textiles worn beyond repair. For the poor, this may well have been the case, as people had to be inventive with their limited resources. But further up the social scale, where items could be made for desire rather