PEASANT CRAFTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21467, 15 April 1933, Page 6 (Supplement)

PEASANT CRAFTS

THE ART OF QUILTING In most countries it is beginning to be recognised how valuable are the traditional crafts and how great their contribution to the general taste. An example of the revival of an old art can bo seen in tho present fashion for quilting. Besides making covers for beds, quilting is used for coats, for linings, and stuffs are also made of it by tho yard. The Provencal quilted petticoats are readily bought by the cultured for all manner of purposes, and tho newer quilting is also tending in the direction of cretonnes and chintzes. Quilting is a slow process. On a frame, stuff is stretched and covered with a thin layer of natural wool. Another piece of stuff is stretched over this and the quilter then begins her work. Tho main difficulty is that the work must look the same on both sides. The stitches therefore have to go through the two layers of stuff and tho wool they enclose. " You must prick your finger every time." said an expert quilter. .At least the quilter must, every time, feel for the three layers and make sure that the needle has gone through. Evenness of work is not difficult to acquire, but evenness on both sides is another matter. Several quilters can work at a time on tho same design—that is, if their idiom is sufficiently alike. It is a great point about quilting that it should have a regular irregularity; that it should never bo mistaken for machine work, and yet that it have a sort of machine neatness about it.