Pieced Quilt, Ontario

To mark the Year of the Craft in the Americas, the commemorative stamps dedicated to the rich textile traditions of Canada will be issued April 30. Today, these types of hand-crafted textiles are fashionable and decorative items adding accent, mood and distinction to a room. Occasionally displayed on walls, they have become "objets d'art". Hundreds of years ago they were mostly - if not strictly - made for warmth and comfort. Their decorative function was to cover bed furnishings during daytime. Quilts, coverlets, "ruggs" and bed cover existed from necessity and gained a place in history because of the techniques used, the rarity or the uniqueness of a piece and mostly as a reflection of a people's talent and culture. All of the items selected can be viewed by the public as each is housed in a Canadian public museum collection. Severe Canadian winters were one of the many reasons for the making of quilts by the early settlers. Every piece of wool, cloth, blanket and old clothing was saved and reused. There are three layers of cloth to a quilt: the top, or face; the filling, generally cotton or unwoven wool acting as insulation; and the underside. The layers were held together with pieces of yarn sewn through from top to bottom, or by quilting, creating seams of running stitches throughout the work. Often, a group of women would gather to work on one quilt. This "Quilting Bee" was a way to socialize, meet and make new friends. The central pattern of this "everyday quilt" represents a Tree of Paradise surrounded by geometric shapes resembling windmills, symbolizing the circle of life.