07/25/2026
Everything changes; quilting changes too!
Quilting and Changes in the 70s
A good pair of scissors, some cardboard or card stock, a pen, a ruler and some fabric. These were the basic supplies of most quilters during the 1800s and most of the 1900s. Patterns were copied, traced and cut and sewn by hand or machine. Quilters relied on newspapers, magazines and friends for quilt patterns. Quilting books were emerging as a field.
In 1979 Yoshio Okada introduced the first Olfa cutter. He had previously invented the box cutter with the snap off blade in 1956, so he was no stranger to blades and sharp objects. At the time the Japanese company was establishing trade with YLI threads, and he gave some samples to the YLI owner. He in turn showed them to Marti Michell who was becoming well known in the world of traditional quilting for her patterns and tools for tracing and cutting.
At that same time Mary Ellen Hopkins was visiting Marti and learned about the tool. She was about to publish a book called “It’s Okay If You Sit on My Quilt”. She incorporated that tool and from there it took off. Word of mouth in quilting still works well.
From the invention of the rotary cutter sprang the need for good cutting mats and exact rulers, most were painted lines at the time. Peggy and Randy Shafer developed a laser engraved ruler (Omnigrid) that was the most accurate ruler to date (1984). That precision has expanded to most companies now for mats and rulers.
Quilters were now finding more time for cutting accurately and sewing well. That also meant time to make more quilts.
All this good news followed a decade or more of some turmoil in the fabrics industry having to do with dyes that might be toxic, treatments that were carcinogenic (3M Scotch Guard and others), Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 reported about DDT and other toxic chemicals that were in cotton fabrics and elsewhere. Formaldehyde was causing breathing problems and was banned in the fabric and clothing market. Dyes were not all colorfast so pre-washing was a necessity.
In the Seventies we encountered the breakup of the Beatles (1970), the Watergate Scandal (1972-74), the resignation of President Nixon, and the Munich Massacre of the Israeli Olympians (1972). This was followed by the Oil Crisis (1973) when OPEC imposed an oil embargo on nations supporting Israel, Roe vs Wade (1973), the end of the Vietnam War (1975), Microsoft started (1975), Three Mile Island (1979), Elvis Presley died (1977), the Camp David Accords (1978), the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan (1979), and the Iranian Revolution (1979), to name a few things.
While the ecology movement started and punk rock began, quilters found their way. The creative 60s and 70s helped women and men find outlets with fabric that started an art quilt movement. Marti Michell and Mary Ellen Hopkins and many others promoted tradition along with a whole publishing movement for quilt books. Jean Ray Laury and Radka Donnell started doing Art Quilts in the 50s and others soon followed. Nancy Crow, Ruth McDowell, Michael James and M. Joan Lintault started experimenting with color and design. It was a blooming of the quilt experience.
These years were the precursors to our quilting today. Even if you didn’t live through it, you can understand how busy the times were. It was a great time to start using creativity as an outlet.
