View source for Quilt

==Traditions==
{{More citations needed section|date=September 2017}}

Quilting traditions are particularly prominent in the United States, where the necessity of creating warm bedding met the paucity of local fabrics in the early days of the colonies. Imported fabric was very expensive, and local homespun fabric was labor-intensive to create and tended to wear out sooner than commercial fabric. It was essential for most families to use and preserve textiles efficiently. Saving or salvaging small scraps of fabric was a part of life for all households. Small pieces of fabric were joined to make larger pieces, in units called "blocks". Creativity could be expressed in the block designs, or simple "utility quilts", with minimal decorative value, could be produced. Crib quilts for infants were needed in the cold of winter, but even early examples of baby quilts indicate the efforts that women made to welcome a new baby.
[[File:MIDSUMMER EVENING QUILTING BEE IN CENTRAL PARK, SPONSORED BY THE NEW YORK PARKS ADMINISTRATION DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL... - NARA - 551676.jpg|thumb|[[Quilting bee]] in [[Central Park]], 1973]]
[[Quilting bee]]s were common communal activities involving all the women and girls in a family or in a larger community. There are also many historical examples of men participating in these quilting traditions.<ref name="Man_Made">{{cite book |last1=Burks |first1=Jean |last2=Cunningham |first2=Joe |date=2012 |title=Man Made Quilts: Civil War to the Present |publisher=Shelburne Museum Inc.  |pages=1–26 |isbn=978-0-939384-37-2 }}</ref> The tops were prepared in advance, and a quilting bee was arranged, during which the actual quilting was completed by multiple people. Quilting frames were often used to stretch the quilt layers and maintain even tension to produce high-quality quilting stitches and to allow many individual quilters to work on a single quilt at one time. Quilting bees were important social events in many communities, and were typically held between periods of high demand for farm labor. Quilts were frequently made to commemorate major life events, such as marriages.

[[File:Fundraising quilt - DPLA - 573888442c8e7ce177f7335e1ac89ff3 (page 1).jpg|alt=White cotton quilt with red stitching|thumb|Fundraising quilt]]
Quilts were often made for other events as well, such as graduations, or when individuals left their homes for other communities. One example of this is the quilts made as farewell gifts for pastors; some of these gifts were subscription quilts. For a subscription quilt, community members would pay to have their names embroidered on the quilt top, and the proceeds would be given to the departing minister. Sometimes the quilts were auctioned off to raise additional money, and the quilt might be donated back to the minister by the winner. A logical extension of this tradition led to quilts being made to raise money for other community projects, such as recovery from a flood or natural disaster, and later, for fundraising for war. Subscription quilts were made for all of [[List of wars involving the United States|America's wars]]. In a new tradition, quilt makers across the United States have been making quilts for wounded veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts.

There are many American traditions regarding the number of quilts a young woman (and her family) was expected to have made prior to her wedding for the establishment of her new home. Given the demands on a new wife, and the learning curve in her new role, it was prudent to provide her some reserve time with quilts already completed. Specific wedding quilts continue to be made today. Wedding ring quilts, which have a [[patchwork quilt|patchwork design]] of interlocking rings, have been made since the 1930s. White wholecloth quilts with high-quality, elaborate quilting, and often trapunto decorations as well, are also traditional for weddings. A superstition existed that it was bad luck to incorporate heart motifs in a wedding quilt (the couples’ hearts might be broken if such a design were included), so tulip motifs were often used to symbolize love in wedding quilts.

The [[Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience]] in New Orleans holds a 19th-century exemplar of a "crazy quilt" (one without a pattern) "that was made by the Jewish Ladies’ Sewing Club of Canton, Miss., in 1885 to be raffled off to help fund the building of a synagogue there".<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|url=https://forward.com/culture/439930/a-museum-devoted-to-southern-jewish-culture-to-open-in-fall-of-2020/|title=A museum devoted to Southern Jewish culture to open in fall of 2020|last=Grisar|first=PJ|date=February 14, 2020|website=Forward|access-date=February 16, 2020}}</ref> (A photo of this quilt accompanies this citation.) The Museum's director, Kenneth Hoffman, says that this quilt involves "lots of little pieces that come together to make something greater than the sum of its parts, it’s crazy but it’s beautiful, it has a social aspect of ladies sitting together sewing, it has a religious aspect."<ref name=":2" />

[[William Rush Dunton]] (1868–1966), psychiatrist, collector, and scholar of American quilts incorporated quilting as part of his occupational therapy treatment. "Dr Dunton, the founder of the [[American Occupational Therapy Association]], encouraged his patients to pursue quilting as a curative activity/therapeutic diversion...."<ref name="Man_Made"/>

The [[National Quilt Museum]] is in [[Paducah, Kentucky]], in the Southern United States. It hosts QuiltWeek, an annual competition and celebration of that attracts artists and hobbyists from the world of quilting.<ref>Linda Elisabeth LaPinta, ''Kentucky Quilts and Quiltmakers: Three Centuries of Creativity, Community, and Commerce'' (University Press of Kentucky, 2023) [https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=60243 online review of this book]. </ref> QuiltWeek has been celebrated in a short documentary by Olivia Loomis Merrion called ''Quilt Fever''. It explores what quilting means to its practitioners along with what it means to Paducah, which has earned the nickname "Quilt City, USA".<ref>{{Cite web|title=Quilt Fever|url=https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2020/03/21/quilt-fever/|last=Roustan|first=Céline|date=March 21, 2020|website=SXSW Shorts|access-date=May 5, 2020}}</ref> 

Among the many television programs as well as YouTube channels devoted to quilting, ''Love of Quilting'', which originates in a magazine of the same name, stands out for being aired on [[PBS]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting|url=https://www.quiltingdaily.com/about-us-fons-and-porter/|date=2020|website=Quilting Daily|access-date=May 15, 2020}}</ref>