Another item,
though not European, does remind us that textiles were recycled until nothing usable was left, because any fabric was too precious to waste. According to Liddell and Watanabe, and also Rice a quilted shoe was found in a rubbish heap along the Silk Road. It is dated approximately 700 A.D. The shoe was patched with leather and because
of the quilting design layout, it was originally something else. The
quilting pattern on this shoe is sometimes called Baptist Fan now, and is a
common modern quilting design. Obviously, the quilting design is not so modern after all.
Sources:
Liddell, Jill, and Yuko Watanabe. Japanese
Quilts. E. P. Dutton, 1988.
Rice, Martha. Historical Quilting.
Ipsley House, 2002.
