The Amish are a community committed to simplicity, humility, God and family. They live modestly, and have less material goods than most of their English neighbors. They de-emphasize decorations and instead fill their homes with functional items. Amish homes I've been in are very basic in their décor, and almost void of color. In contrast, in their quilt making, they can choose to be showy with their "worldly" colors and quilting designs. The Amish quilters have developed extraordinary color usage and fine, uniform quilting that has inspired many quilters, and is universally respected as a high point of quilting skill and design.

Time and time again, when I ask the quilters when they started quilting, and I'm told, when they where young girls. It's a part of the Amish tradition to learn quilt making by their mother's in their early teens. The extensive and fine quilting done on Lancaster County quilts is often considered the finest done by Amish women. They are among some of the most skilled quilters in the world.

Today the Amish of Lancaster use a wide range of patterns and colors. The early quilters used colors similar to their clothing, mainly blue, purple, green and red. The earliest existing Amish quilt dates back to 1849, made by an Amish women living in Lancaster County, PA. Several styles and patterns that originated from Lancaster are, Diamond in the Square, Bars, Sunshine and Shadows, Nine Patch, Lone Stars, Irish Chains, Crazy Patterns, and Log Cabins. The quilting motifs or designs that are often used are, graceful feather designs, tulips, hearts, fiddlehead ferns, baskets and pumpkin seeds. These patterns and motifs are still commonly used with today's Amish quilt makers. Other distinctions between the quilts from Amish living in Lancaster County, and that of other Amish communities are the square medallion format, wide borders with dense quilting motifs, narrow inner border, and the center field filled with crosshatching or feathers, stars of floral designs.