About Quilts

About Quilts

A quilt is made of three layers, backing, batting and the front which has a design made of cloth pieced together. Quilts are used for keeping people warm. It is a way to recycle old clothes and scraps of cloth. 

Slave women made quilts for their masters and for themselves. Their masters didn’t provide them with good cloth to make their quilts, so they had to make them out of old scraps. However they did give the slaves good cloth to make good quilts for their master. 

Quilts can have many different patterns. Some of these patterns were used in the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was a network of people who helped slaves to escape to the north. They sometimes used quilt patterns as codes to help them escape.

Today quilts are used for decorations in houses in addition to keeping people warm.