Patchwork Help, Advice, Tips and Tricks

What is patchwork?

We hear a lot about patchwork and quilting but what exactly is patchwork? The word 'patchwork' originated from 'piece work' which was the art of joining together small pieces of fabric or material to make a larger piece of cloth.

Nowadays we normally think of patch-work as being a way of creating a patchwork quilt. Instead of using up scraps of old fabric from clothes or curtains there are specially printed designs for just this purpose. This does not mean to say that you cannot use scraps from garments but with the wealth of choice available it is so easy to create whatever design you want.

If you take just 4 squares of cotton fabric and sew them together to make a larger square this is actually patchwork. From simple beginnings you can go to the other extreme and produce the most intricate of designs on a large scale such as a double bed quilt and this is still patchwork.

From this you can see that the patchwork bit of patchwork and quilting is actually constructing the piece of fabric to make the top of your quilt by sewing together all the pieces or patches of fabric to create the design for your project. This will be the start of your patchwork quilt.

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