Is it Really a Fat Ugly Quilt?
It's so easy to be impressed with exquisite quilts of fine needlework and lovely fabrics. But far more quilts have been lovingly made for everyday use. Quilt historian, Laurel Horton, put this all in perspective when she wrote the following.
"Our notions of quilts are based on our own cultural values. To try to understand why someone else would make a quilt that we see as fat and ugly from another point of view, consider this scenario: Say you are a child attending a big family reunion at your grandmother's house. There aren't enough beds to go around, so your grandmother makes you up a pallet on the floor. She folds a couple of big thick quilts, and you snuggle in between them. What are the sensations and emotional experiences that you and your grandmother experience as a result of this gesture? An experience like this would likely influence your perception of quilts for the rest of your life. In many cultures, thickness and softness represent concepts of generosity and plentitude. A thin quilt, on the other hand, might be perceived as skimpy, stingy, and inadequate."
Learn more about this topic in Laurel Horton's article,“Quilts and Cultural Values: Gender, Race, and Social Class,” in Quilt Studies 6 (Halifax: British Quilt Study Group, 2004), 7-27. Contact The British Quilt Study Group to order this publication or see if your local library can get it for you.
Laurel Horton is the author of Mary Black’s Family Quilts: Memory and Meaning in Everyday Life (The University of South Carolina Press). This book examines quilts made by generations of a single family.