Traditional Amish Quilt Designs
Amish quilts have made the Amish people famous throughout the world for their beautiful designs, bold colors, and quality workmanship, but of course this type of worldwide notoriety was never the intention of the Amish quilters. The Amish began quilting in the early part of the 1800s, just like women of other communities at the time. While the idea of creating art just for art’s sake is something the Amish reject, the idea of creating something useful that also happens to be beautiful is something the early Amish quilters learned to embrace over time.
The earliest Amish quilts were simple, one-color whole cloths that consisted of embroidered designs on the top of the quilts. The idea of stitching different pieces of colored fabric together was gradually accepted over time by Amish quilters, but it was based in the Amish belief that everything serve a useful purpose rather than just making it look pretty. These early Amish quilters would collect scraps of cloth from their other sewing projects and save them for quilting rather than throwing the smaller pieces of fabric away. This idea of giving something purpose out of what was once waste appealed to the Amish. From this point on, the multi-colored Amish quilts were embraced and quilting took off in Amish communities across the country.
At the time, Amish quilts were, for the most part, indistinguishable from other quilts being made by non-Amish quilters. However, around the mid to late 1800s, the Amish quilt began making its transformation from plain and everyday to something unique and identifiable as an Amish product. While the Amish are known for their plain and simple dress and way of life, the Amish quilts began to take on a very distinctive look. Bright, solid fabrics were used to create geometric patterns using simple square and rectangular designs. These bold patterns were then contrasted against a black or dark colored border, creating a striking and attractive design. Over time, small designs began showing up in the borders and corners of the Amish quilts. Natural, simple designs, such as grapevines, tulips, baskets, and feathers, were common styles seen in these early Amish quilts.
As the traditional Amish quilt design began taking shape in the early 1900s, they became bolder and bigger. Traditional Amish quilts are generally square in shape, have wide dark borders, and use corner blocks in their designs. The colors they used in their designs were generally bright blues, purples, greens, and reds. These were the colors that were used in their own clothing, so leftover fabrics were used from these pieces to make quilts. Solid fabrics were almost always used on the fronts of the Amish quilts, but the use of a patterned fabric as the backing piece could be seen in some Amish quilting communities. The size of these Amish quilts has also evolved, getting bigger over time due to the use of larger sized beds.
The recognizable designs that have made the Amish quilts so famous started out with simple, geometric patterns, but they have transformed slowly over the decades. The earliest patterns were center square designs, rectangular bar designs, and diamonds inside a square designs. The ‘diamond in square’ design became one of the most prevalent patterns in Amish quilting, inspired by the triangular shape of their prayer capes. Amish women often wear prayer capes on their shoulders, which look like large triangles, so this became a popular design style for many Amish quilters. This pattern is considered by many to be the ultimate in Amish quilting designs and is perhaps one of the most famous.
Other, more complicated patterns were developed from these diamond and triangular shapes. The sunshine, star-burst, or shadow style of quilting places a round shape in the center of the quilt that has a saw-tooth trim to it, much like the shape of a star. Smaller pieces of diamond shaped fabrics are then be placed around the jagged edges, using graduating colors as it radiates out from the middle piece, like a sunburst. This design is one of the most complicated Amish quilting patterns to make and can consist of thousands of different pieces of fabric and dozens of colors.
As the Amish became more and more successful and prosperous as a community, the use of leftover fabrics from clothing became less common. Around the 1970s, the Amish quilt explosion began and the demand for these unique and finely made works of art became overwhelming for the casual quilter. Amish quilters began selling more and more of their quilts and many young Amish women became career quilters. Traditional Amish quilt designs generally consist of large, geometric patterns that use fewer pieces than other quilt designs. A central design is usually used with a wide outer border that is black or dark in color to contrast with the brighter pieces of fabrics that are used in the central design. Diamond, square, rectangle, or triangle designs are the prevailing patterns seen. Deep, saturated colors are used, with black only being used around the border. Solid fabrics without pattern are generally used, except for on the backing piece.
While these traditional designs are still the most sought after and popular of the Amish quilt designs, many Amish quilters create designs that are outside the traditional path in order to appeal to the modern quilt buyer. Lighter colors, patterned fabrics, elaborate quilting designs, and non-geometric shapes are used to attract those not interested in the traditional Amish quilt designs. While these designs and patterns are just as intricately designed and painstakingly pieced together, they are not generally considered traditional in style. However, no matter what the design, the quality and care that is placed in making these Amish quilts is what makes them so well known and desired by collectors from around the world.
