Product Review: Why Quilts Matter

I’ve had a few very early mornings the last couple days. I woke up around 4 AM for no reason and couldn’t get back to sleep. Usually I go out to the living room and put in a movie that I’ve watched a hundred times, hoping I will be bored back to sleep. This time I noticed my copy of “Why Quilts Matter.” It is a nine-part documentary on quilts, and it has been sitting unwatched on my shelf for several months. I popped it in the DVD player, hoping I would fall back asleep. The bad news is, it did not bore me back to sleep. Instead, I thoroughly enjoyed watching each episode, one right after another. I didn’t get much sleep, but I finished all nine episodes in just two mornings and was glad for it.

I’ve been deeply interested in traditional quilts ever since I was a teenager. I read everything I could get my hands on, trying to learn how to quilt, their history, basically anything at all having to do with quilts. I read about quilts for a good five years or more before I actually made a quilt. This documentary did a good job talking about many different aspects of the quilt industry including how they are bought and sold, how they are valued, who collects them, when is a quilt art, when is it craft. It also explained quite a bit about the Gee’s Bend quilts and the women who made them. It discussed how quilts became an avenue to express political views for women who had no other voice, and it showed how we can learn about the life these women led through the clues they left behind.

If you haven’t had a chance to watch this series, I hope you’ll make time to watch it. I think there will be things you might find interesting and informative, just like I did.

And now that I’ve watched all nine of the episodes, I’m hoping that means I will sleep all night long in my own bed tonight!