I finally visited the V&A in London and the historical textiles blew my mind

I was walking through the fashion galleries and got stuck looking at a 19th century dress made from over 200 pieces of printed cotton. The way they pieced together tiny scraps to make the full skirt pattern was incredible, like a giant fabric puzzle. It's got me thinking about modern patchwork designs in a whole new way. Has anyone tried designing something based on historical garment construction like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

maryh963mo ago

Oh wow, that sounds amazing. I got really into quilt history a while back and tried copying a pattern from an 1850s log cabin quilt. The hardest part was cutting all the tiny strips by hand without a rotary cutter. It gave me a whole new respect for how much work that actually was.

adam_hernandez1mo ago

Oh actually, those old log cabin quilts from the 1850s weren't usually hand cut like that. Most of the time they'd fold the fabric multiple times and cut through all the layers at once with shears, which is way faster than one strip at a time.

gavin_reed3mo ago

My buddy tried that last year with a Civil War era quilt pattern. He gave up after two weeks because his hands were cramping so bad from the scissors. Said he couldn't believe how straight they got the lines back then just by eye. It makes you realize every single quilt from that time is basically a superpower.