UNESCO has just announced that it is adding an old quilting practice to the list of crafts that have intangible cultural heritage status. Quilting in a flat frame with a rocking stitch has a history that stretches back certainly to the 16th century and maybe much further. This is one of the original forms of quilting on cloth, creating beautiful and complex patterns as it is done. This technique often produces a style of quilting known as whole cloth quilts.
Hand quilting in a frame is being placed on the Red List of Endangered Crafts by the Heritage Crafts Council as the number of elderly practitioners of this skill, mainly in Wales, Northern England and the Scottish Borders continues to dwindle and quilting frames disappear.
But this month we talk to two quilters who are seeking to reverse that by recognising, protecting and reviving whole cloth quilting, and the tools needed to carry it out, not just in Britain, but much more widely as well.
