[SCA-cooks] OT documenting quilts

[Jeanne Papanastasiou]

  I've been an active member of the SCA (along with various other
re-enactors) since 1980 and have been quilting for over 15 years and have
YET to run across any form of documentation regarding the Quilt as we know
them to be today in ANY country anywhere before the 1800s.

If you had such irrefutable proof, that would be different. I was a
paleo-anthropoligist major with a minor in English linguistics in college.
I am quite familiar with research.

Here is some information.

http://www.quilthistory.com/dating_quilts.htm

Quilts and quilt making are a reflection of the life and times of the women
who made quilts. Although the technique of quilting existed throughout
history (quilted items have been discovered in Egyptian tombs, for example,
and French knights used quilted jackets under their armor), quilts as we
think of them didn't start showing up on the American scene until just prior
to 1800. I believe the earliest existing European quilts are a pair of whole
cloth Trapunto ones, telling the story of Tristan and Isolde dating from the
early 1400's.  The oldest quilts in the Smithsonian collection go back to
about 1780.

Soffya
http://www.aeonline.biz/Links.htm

-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-admin at ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-admin at ansteorra.org]On Behalf Of Rosine
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 9:00 AM
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] OT documenting quilts


> On my quilting section is a link to quilting history.  "Quilted" is
> documented.  As quilted protection under armour, but "quilting" especially
> as we know it today has only been around under 200 years.
>
> Soffya

Please excuse any negative tone of this missive. I am annoyed and am trying
to write as if I'm not.
   If I showed you a petrified two-layer frosted cake made with chocolate
which had been in a family tomb - and the family had owned the tomb since
1550 and had a diary entry from the maker of the tomb, would you then baldly
state, "two layer chocolate cakes as we know them today have only been
around for the last 200 years"?
   I feel as though everything that I wrote, AND the actual picture of the
artefact itself that I offered to send to anyone interested, was just
brushed aside like a cobweb in favour of supporting an outdated theory. When
an artefact shows that a theory is in doubt - it is in doubt. The piecework
and it's history is not in question. The silk and sewing techniques are not
in question. It is just not well known - but is becoming more so. We cannot
put our hands over our eyes and pretend that it does not exist just because
we don't want to change our perception of past activities.


Rosine

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