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60 free Quilting trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This quilting trivia quiz is written for guild nights, retreats, quilt-shop events and anyone who has ever lost an afternoon to a rotary cutter. It runs from the oldest surviving bed quilt in Europe and the padded garments worn under medieval armour, through the block patterns, tools and superstitions of American quilting, to the art quilts, memorial quilts and modern-quilt movement of the last fifty years. Along the way you will meet the traditions that make quilting a global craft: padded work from Italy and Provence, reinforcing stitchwork from Japan, kantha and ralli quilts from South Asia, Hawaiian appliqué, Amish geometry and the improvised patterns of a small Southern community. There are questions on famous makers and famous quilts, on the museum that first hung quilts like paintings, and on the tool that changed how everyone cuts fabric. Easy questions suit beginners; the harder ones on dates, names and places will test long-time quilters. Every answer has been checked against encyclopaedia entries and museum sources, and each question shows its explanation and source after you answer.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01By definition, quilting joins a minimum of how many layers of fabric?
Three
The layers are usually called the quilt top, the filling and the backing.
Q 02What is the insulating middle layer of a quilt called?
Batting
Wealthier Swedish quilters once used wool for it, while poorer ones filled quilts with linen scraps, rags or paper mixed with animal hair.
Q 03The word "quilt" traces back to the Latin culcita, meaning what?
A stuffed cushion
It reached English through the French cuilte, and the first English use seems to date from the 13th century.
Q 04The earliest surviving European bed quilt, made in the late 14th century, depicts scenes from which legend?
Tristan and Isolde
Its Sicilian-language captions and grapevine borders survive in two sections, one in London and one in Florence.
Q 05On which Mediterranean island was the earliest surviving European bed quilt made?
Sicily
It is made of two layers of linen with cotton wadding, and its raised figures were formed by pushing in rolls of padding.
Q 06What is the Italian-derived name for the "stuffed" quilting technique padded from behind?
Trapunto
The technique was used to make the padded inner-tunic collars of the Starfleet uniforms in Star Trek II.
Q 07The stuffed wholecloth quilts of southern France are known as boutis, a Provençal word meaning what?
Stuffing
Two layers are quilted together and cord or stuffing is worked into sections of the design for a raised effect.
Q 08Traditional Japanese sashiko stitching is best known for which colour combination?
White thread on indigo cloth
Cheap white cotton thread and abundant indigo-dyed cloth made the look practical before it became decorative.
Q 09What does the Japanese word sashiko literally mean?
Little stabs
It began in the Edo period as a way to strengthen homespun clothes, and became winter work in northern farming villages.
Q 10Nakshi kantha quilts are traditionally stitched together using thread pulled from what?
Old saris
Layers of worn cloth were spread on the ground, weighted at the edges and sewn with rows of large basting stitches whenever there was time.
Q 11Ralli quilts are traditionally made in western India and which neighbouring country?
Pakistan
One woman designs and pieces the top from hand-dyed cotton scraps, then family and neighbours quilt it in straight parallel lines.
Q 12Which company introduced the first rotary cutter in 1979?
OLFA
It was designed for garment making but quilters adopted it almost immediately, replacing cardboard templates traced one piece at a time.
Q 13Traditional hand-quilting needles, smaller and stronger than ordinary sewing needles, are called what?
Betweens
Their very small eye avoids a bump at the head of the needle when pulling thread through all the layers.
Q 21Hawaiian quilting descends from kapa moe, an indigenous bed covering made from what?
The inner bark of trees
Kapa was beaten, felted and dyed in geometric patterns; because it cannot be quilted, every Hawaiian quilt uses imported cloth.
Q 22Traditional Amish quilts are pieced from geometric shapes using only what kind of fabric?
Solid colours
They avoid appliqué, butt their corners rather than mitring them, and are sewn entirely by hand.
Q 23Lancaster County Amish quilters are especially known for the Bars pattern and which other design?
Diamond-in-a-Square
Q 14In a traditional Log Cabin quilt block, what colour is the hearth-symbolising centre square?
Red
Light strips fill half the block and dark strips the other half, and layouts of the blocks get names like Sunshine and Shadow.
Q 15The Double Wedding Ring pattern of interlocking circles first came to prominence during which period?
The Great Depression
Finished versions are still often given to commemorate marriages.
Q 16English embroidery and Japanese art at which event sparked the crazy quilt craze?
The Philadelphia Centennial Exposition
Cracked-glaze Japanese pottery inspired the fan stitching that turned up on so many crazy quilts.
Q 17An 1884 Harper's Bazaar article estimated a full-size crazy quilt could take how many hours to complete?
1,500
Crazy quilts rarely have a filling layer at all, and they favour velvet, satin, tulle and silk over cotton.
Q 18Which embroidered motif was often added to Victorian crazy quilts for good luck?
A spider and its web
Flowers and birds were the other favourites, with fancy stitches worked along every seam.
Q 19Baltimore album quilts, with a different appliquéd design in every block, originated in which decade?
1840s
Most were signed, and a newly available indelible ink let makers add flowery poetry to each block.
Q 20A classic Hawaiian quilt's large symmetrical appliqué is cut from how many pieces of fabric?
One
The quilter folds the cloth into quarters or eighths and cuts the design out the way a child cuts a paper snowflake.
Lancaster quilts also feature wide borders with lavish quilting, while midwestern Amish quilts use narrower borders and fancier piecing.
Q 24The celebrated quilters of Gee's Bend live in which US state?
Alabama
Their improvised, rule-free quilts were honoured with a series of US postage stamps.
Q 25In which year did the touring exhibition that brought Gee's Bend quilts national fame first open?
2002
It travelled to many museums including the Smithsonian, the first nationwide recognition of African-American quilt-making.
Q 26By what official name is the Gee's Bend community also known?
Boykin
Its post office opened in 1949, and the 2020 census counted just 208 residents.
Q 27Harriet Powers, maker of the 1886 Bible Quilt, was born into slavery in which state?
Georgia
Her two surviving quilts are held by the National Museum of American History and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Q 28Faith Ringgold's story quilt Tar Beach shows a young girl flying over which New York neighbourhood?
Harlem
Ringgold, originally a painter, turned to quilts partly to step away from Western art traditions.
Q 29Ringgold's Tar Beach picture book was runner-up for which major American illustration award?
The Caldecott Medal
It did win the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award and the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration.
Q 30Which activist conceived the AIDS Memorial Quilt in 1985 after seeing names taped to a building like a patchwork?
Cleve Jones
The idea came during the annual candlelight march remembering Harvey Milk and George Moscone.