"The patchwork quilts during this period in time were also used to help African slaves escape to FREEDOM."

Those who know me, will know of my passion for textiles and sewing. Even before I decided to train as a needlework teacher (as it was called in my day), I was always creating something in my formative years.

So today I found myself visiting the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, UK. Even if you’re not handy with a needle and thread yourself (yes, I still sew buttons on for my 33 year old daughter), you cannot fail to be amazed by some of these wonderful creations that were on display. My favourite is always the traditional antique quilts and I wasn’t disappointed as they had a whole display of antique Turkey red and white quilts from the late 1800’s. I could have taken any one of these home.

But (apologies to my English teacher who said a sentence should never begin with ‘and’ or ‘but’), how many of us know about some of the historical stories surrounding old quilts? Several years ago I found myself researching one such story for an art project, regarding quilts that were made during the American Civil War in the 1860’s.

Many of these quilts were made by family members for soldiers going off to fight in this war, who used the quilts for bedding, and unfortunately were also used to wrap up the deceased soldier before burial.

The patchwork quilts during this period in time were also used to help African slaves escape to FREEDOM. Whilst researching, I stumbled across the story of the Underground Railroad - the transportation of slaves to freedom, which had to be done in the utmost secret of conditions. It was the largest North American freedom movement - transporting escaped slaves from the Southern States to the Northern States and Canada.

These slaves could not read or write. Codes were therefore an important part of a slave's existence, and allowed them to communicate with each other in a way that their owners could not translate. One such code was the secret messages in the form of quilt patterns, which aided the slaves on their route to freedom. Each pattern represented a different meaning. Quilts were slung over fences or window sills, seemingly to ‘air’, but were actually passing on necessary information.