Quilting is a technique whereby layers of fabric are sewn together, usually in order to make a warm bedcovering. Quilting can be performed in many ways, but a quilt frame is often utilized to stabilize the layers while a quilter or group of quilters uses needle and thread to sew a running stitch through all the layers across the surface of the quilt. Hand-quilting was standard practice until the 1980s; by the twenty-first century, many quilters used sewing machines or long-arm quilting machines to sew the layers together. Sometimes the quilting stitches follow a decorative pattern; other times they are made in a basic grid format simply for their functional purpose of attachment. (more…)