Beth Gotcheon

"Patchwork, the art of making whole cloth from bits and pieces of scraps and clothes that had been worn and mended and cut down for the children and then cut down again, was far from being the leisure-time fancy work that much needlework, including some quiltmaking, has become. Instead, it was a craft born of the harshest necessity, a symbol of a life of hardship in which money was scarce, material goods were scarcer, and all one had to give was labor and time. Patchwork is really the blues of the American woman."

Beth Gotcheon, "The Perfect Patchwork Primer"