Thread Hijack warning.

Jock Scot and others:
Quilting here is an art form that came to the colonies with the first European settlers. Fabric of any kind was quite dear, and could not be wasted. The early skill of Housewifery included the ability to salvage usable cloth from damaged clothing, and piece it together to make a comforter for the bed. To help keep the body warm, the comforter was made of two layers of pieced fabric, with raw cotton, feathers or wool stuffed in between them. To keep the stuffing from shifting around, there were rows of stitching going through both layers of the comforter. The early English were want to make theirs of strips of fabric, resulting in a stripe effect. The early Scotswomen here took it up a level by sewing small shapes into a repetitive pattern, carefully selecting the colours that would comprise each section or "block". they also took to using the colour of the thread to embellish the design when they did the pass through stitching, which would often be done in a pattern of its own. Thus was born the American art of quilting.

End of highjack, you may now resume your normal thread.
Slainte