How to make a strippy quilt

Strippy quilts are simple to cut and piece, look delightful and reward the maker with a finished quilt top in a relative jiffy. A strippy quilt is exactly what its name suggests: long strips of cloth sewn together in rows to create a quilt top. Originally popular between 1860 and 1930 in Wales and the North of England, they were often utilitarian rather than for display; although the plain strips provided an opportunity for the maker to really let their stitches sing out. The quilt design travelled to America, where the Amish community embraced its simplicity and adjusted its composition to suit their environment. There are also versions of Strippy quilts within Gee’s Bend designs – both old and new. I think of Strippy quilts as the ‘jeans and T-shirts’ of the quilt world. Not fancy, but extremely useful and easy in every sense. I imagine they provided light relief from some of the more complicated quilting techniques.

For more projects from Cassandra Ellis please see A World of Quilts: Designing and Making Contemporary Quilts Inspired by Traditional Patterns (2014).