12 August 2008

Quilts in books

First, for the academically-minded, a website that offers a list of books in which quilts are American symbols.

And for those who'd like a good read, Kate Grenville's The Idea of Perfection, in which a quilt figures importantly. One commentator on the BBC's item on the book (years ago) - a man - says: "...amazing book. Incidentally the engineering is real. I bet the quilting is too."

What stays with me from this very enjoyable book is the passage when the heroine is thinking back to her childhood, of lying under the wool quilts that her grandmother made (this is in Australia), and noticing the alternation of dark and light, light and dark. Perhaps it was a quilt like this one, made from tailor's samples (picture found in Miranda Innes, Traditional quilts from around the world):

You can read the first few chapters here.

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