The first settlers in America, called colonists, had no factories or shops, and many communities had no craft-workers either. People had to build their own houses, grow their own food, and make their own clothes.
To make clothes, colonists had to do more than just cut out cloth and sew it together. First, they had to grow flax for linen and raise sheep for wool. Next, they had to spin the fibres into thread or yarn. Often they coloured it in dyes made from boiled plants. Then they wove or knitted it into cloth.
When the clothes the colonists had made became ragged, they didn’t throw them away. They found other ways to use them. Some cloth was cut into patches and then pieced together to make blankets called patchwork quilts. The craft of quilt-making is still popular today.
A quilt is a kind of fabric sandwich. The top and bottom layers are cloth. The filling is made of raw cotton or some other soft material.
Today, quilters sew the layers together with tiny stitches. The top and bottom layers can be made out of many coloured patches. Sometimes the stitches form designs like diamonds, leaves, or stars over the patches.
Picture Credit : Google