Decorating with Quilts and Patchwork

Patchwork is an art form born out of economic necessity. People of many cultures reused fabric scraps to save money and scarce resources. Patched clothing and patchwork quilts provided both warmth and beauty. Nowadays, decorating with quilts and patchwork is more often a style choice than an economic need. Antique and vintage quilts are highly collectible for use as display pieces. Unquilted or lightly quilted patchworks made of sturdy modern fabric also make attractive placemats, table runners, and wall hangings.

Over centuries, people around the world have developed gorgeous variations in the art art of patchwork. Nowadays, most quilts are no longer made from leftovers. Fabric stores now have whole sections of fabric specifically made to be cut up and sewn together in quilt form.

Reusing bits of favorite dresses, pajamas, even jeans adds nostalgic meaning to a quilt. You can add embroidery, fabric paint, or repurposed vintage fabric items. You might incorporate dishtowels or handkerchiefs for vintage whimsy. Dishtowel curtains work especially well in a kitchen, bathroom, or bedroom decorated in shabby chic, French country, or Victorian style.

Here are some useful tips decorating with quilts and patchwork.

Not All Patchwork Is Quilted

It’s common to refer to all textiles that include multiple types or patterns of fabric sewn together as quilts. However, quilts aren’t all patchwork, and not all patchwork is quilted. Textiles made from multiple different fabrics are called patchwork. Pieces sewn together with decorative stitching are quilted.

Quilting holds two or more pieces of fabric together, with a middle layer of batting (the insulating layer of cotton, wool, or acrylic) held securely in place. This keeps batting from shifting or becoming uneven. Batting gives a quilt warmth and stiffness, and quilting keeps the form flat and even.

Today’s patchwork quilts are made primarily of patterned fabric. Traditionally, such quilts were often one single fabric pattern, or made all of solid fabrics, as Amish quilts are. But patchwork doesn’t need to be quilted. For example, patchwork plaid shirts and Bermuda shorts, both staples of the preppy wardrobe, are unquilted. Throws made from pieces of old saris are also often patchwork, but they’re not usually quilted. These make attractive accessories when draped over sofas or hung on walls. They’re especially popular in homes decorated in the bohemian or eclectic interior decoration styles.

Quilts with Applied Decoration

Patchwork can include not only adjoining pieces of fabric but also appliqué work. Appliqués are fabric pieces, often in unusual shapes, sewn on top of others for decorative effect. Traditional Hawaiian quilts are good examples of this technique. Hawaiian quilts involve cutting a stylized, symmetrical botanical design out of a bold solid colored fabric. Then the cutout is appliquéd (i.e., the outer edge of it is stitched) onto a white background. Quilting stitches are added around the appliquéd shape.

Hawaiian textile artists based their designs on those in kapa moe, an indigenous Hawaiian bed cover textile made of bark. They applied their own aesthetics and traditions to those introduced by white missionaries in the 19th century, resulting in a lovely new art form.

Traditional Hawaiian appliquéd quilts would look fabulous in a coastal home. Their simple color palettes and ample use of clean white backgrounds give an airy, fresh feeling to a room. Decorating with quilts like these elegant works of art would bring a unique touch to any room.

East Asian & Pacific Islander Influences

In Korea, jogakbo patchworks use small pieces of leftover fabric to create beautiful patchwork fabric using uneven shapes and sizes. This style lends itself well to creating stunning curtains or wall hangings. In Japan, the yosegire patchwork tradition led to a tradition of making kimonos out of scraps. Sashiko, the Japanese art of quilting using thick white thread, uses stitching to add patterns to solid indigo-dyed fabrics. The Japanese sashiko quilting technique uses repeating traditional pattern motifs. Sashiko means “little stabs.” These tiny, regular stitches result in textiles that are elegant in their use of clean lines and a simple palette.

Crazy quilts

Japanese art inspired a major development in quilting history. The American “crazy quilt” patchwork fad of the late 19th century is based on Japanese designs. In 1876, Philadelphia held a Centennial International Exhibition that featured Japanese pottery. Some of the pottery had intentionally cracked, or crazed, glazes. American women began applying crazed (or “crazy”) patterns to their quilting in response.

America had a tradition of creating quilts with evenly sized and shaped pieces in regular patterns made from everyday fabrics. Crazy quilts, however, were made primarily by wealthier women. They used scraps of finer fabrics such as silks, velvets, and satin brocades. Patterns, flowers, names, even poems were added in embroidery silk. Sometimes mementoes printed on silk were stitched in as well.

With all the embroidery and other applied decoration, a crazy quilt could take hundreds of hours to make. Their fine fabrics were difficult to wash, so such quilts were more for display than daily use. One of the most famous and moving crazy quilts of the 19th century was made by the Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani. The queen created this work of art during her internment in Iolani Palace after the U.S.-backed overthrow of her monarchy in 1893.

The popularity of crazy quilts surged in the 1980s. Decorating with quilts and patchwork expanded from simply using quilts on beds to hanging them on walls. (Patchwork vests and jackets were also in vogue for a while.) Antique quilts can now fetch dizzyingly high prices. Crazy quilts are fun to make and view, and are highly collectible.

South Asian Patchwork & Quilting Traditions

In Southern Asia, quilters use a similar running-stitch technique, kantha. It binds lightweight quilts and throws made from reused saris. Bengali women of the pre-Vedic period (around 1500 BCE) developed the art. “Kantha” refers to both the style of running stitch and the cloth made using the technique.

Originally, women piled five to seven layers of used fabrics together. They’d put the nicest fabrics on the top and bottom, then sew the layers together. The closely placed lines of kantha stitching usually ran throughout the entire thickness of the quilt. This gave a pleasingly wavy effect. It also kept the backing from slipping away. Sometimes running stitches would form nakshi kantha, artistic patterns incorporating animals or plants.

Kantha stitches sometimes create the outlines of patterns all over a coverlet. This makes for a vibrant conversation piece in any room. Decorating with quilts, runners, or pillows that use kantha stitches can be surprisingly inexpensive. Though economical, kantha textiles add rich color and hand-crafted comfort to your home.

Kantha made from cotton is handwashable using cold water, and should be air-dried. Indian textile dyes may fade with washing, however. To limit fading or bleeding, consider dye-trapping sheets. When you air dry, expect some dye to drip from the fabric—hang it where that won’t harm whatever it drips on. I hang it on a drying rack in the bathtub, and use bleach to clean any stains in the tub afterward. It’s bet to dry clean hangings made from silk saris to avoid damaging the cloth.

For more tips on caring for hand-dyed fabrics, see my article Caring for Batik and Other Deeply Dyed Fabrics.

Check for Condition Before Hanging

Before you decorate with quilts or other patchwork items, make sure that they have no split seams, holes, or weak spots. Such spots may open up and cause rips if you hang the quilt and let gravity tug on it. If you don’t feel you can make those repairs well yourself, a tailor or seamstress can make minor repairs for not much money. With a bit of preparation, you can hang new and even older quilts safely, as long as they’re in good condition to begin with. However, it’s best to display especially fragile quilts flat, or drape them gently.

Quilts make fantastic display pieces, but the seams and silks of antique crazy quilts can be very fragile. Silk tends to fray and split over time if not stored properly or if left in the sun. If you want to hang your crazy quilt, place it out of direct sunlight and display it on a quilt rack or folded over a rod hung on a wall.

When you display antique quilts, keep the fabric from fading or splitting at the fold lines. You’ll want to refold the quilt occasionally so you expose different parts every few months. This will spread the wear and tear and lower the possibility of damage.

Is That Quilt Sturdy Enough to Hang?

The safest way to hang a quilt is to drape it over a rod, or on a wall-mounted or standing quilt rack. This puts the least stress on the quilt. To show the entire front of the quilt, sew a long pocket or sleeve along one edge of the back of the quilt. Next, run the rod through that pocket. Spread stress on the quilt out over a wide area to lower the risk of damage. Once the quilt is on the rod, you can hang it using one of several methods:

• Affix two nails or two brackets to the wall and rest the rod on top of them. Leave at least two inches of rod hanging beyond the brackets/nails on each side. This increases stability, lowers the chance of sagging, and looks more balanced.
• Hang especially large quilts on curtain rods suspended from ceiling-mounted curtain rod brackets.
• Get a long piece of decorative cording approximately twice as wide as the width of the quilt you want to hang. Tie each end of the cord to one end of the display rod. Hang from the center of the cord.
• If the quilt is narrow, you can affix the sleeve on the back to the narrow end and slide it over a bamboo textile hanger. This will hold the quilt in place and provide an attractive bamboo element that’s easy to hang on the wall.

Personalize with Quilts & Patchwork

Decorating with quilts and patchwork is a wonderful way to bring color, pattern, and history into a space. You can create memorable focal points, fill large walls, and even make loud rooms quieter by covering hard surfaces with soft quilted fabric that dampens noise. Quilted throws and patchwork table runners liven up neutral spaces, adding just enough personality to keep a room from becoming boring without overtaking the space. Try folding an old family quilt into a long rectangle and using it like a throw over one end of your sofa—see how cozy it looks. Now that’s a fun way to add personality to your home.

More About Caring for & Decorating with Textiles

To learn more about caring for textiles or decorating with them, see my other articles on textile arts:

• Decorate Your Home with Fabric
• Decorating with Needlework
• Caring for Textile Arts
• Caring for Batik and Other Deeply Dyed Fabrics
• Decorating with Lace and Macrame

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Baltimore album quilt, 1845–1855 | International Quilt Museum via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)