Quilting for a new baby has been a tradition carried on for about 250 years. The first of these small blankets are tiny treasures of quilting culture. Baby quilts may be common today, but are surrounded with a rich history. Baby blankets emerged at the end of the eighteenth century. Until then, babies slept with their mothers or servants. Around 1750, baby furniture such as cribs and small beds began to be documented in inventories. It is only natural that baby-sized quilts would follow. At first, baby quilts were miniature replicas of larger quilts made for adults. The first baby quilts used the same patterns and fabrics as did their larger counterparts. Gradually, these tiny quilts began adopting children’s themes. The change in theme seems to have followed the introduction of children’s literature. In fact, characters from literature such as Sunbonnet Sue and Overall Bill were some of the first children’s themes to be embroidered onto children’s quilts. By the start of the twentieth century, kits and fabric motifs began to have children’s themes. Today, it is hard to find an early baby quilt in good condition. This is because baby quilts reflected the family’s social status. An average woman, pregnant with her first child, would oftentimes make a simple quilt for the new baby. She would then use the same quilt for each of her following children until it was too worn to use anymore. In addition, the infant mortality rate was very high, and many babies were wrapped in their blankets before burial. More affluent women tended to have more time to devote to quilting and received more gifts for their babies. This is why the majority of the early, intact baby blankets came from more well-off families.
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