Quilting, at one time, was a real social thing. When you had to hang a quilt up on a quilting frame to stitch the cover, filler, and backing together, it took two people - one to push the needle through from the front side and another to push it back from the back side.

A quilting "bee" would usually have two working on the "quilting" at the frame, while the others did "piecing" to cut and stitch the cover patterns. The "owner" of the quilt on the frame nearly always took the front side, and friendships - and feuds - could be started and nurtured over whether the "backsider" used stitches of the correct length and placement to satisfy the owner of the quilt. The actual "quilting" - the stitches that held the layers together - sometimes involved very elaborate patterns, separate from or coordinated with the pattern of the piecework.

Conversation, of course, was a significant part of the "bee." It was not generally a place where the "men of the house" would want to be...
or were permitted.

A more modern "machine quilted" piece can elicit admiration for the artist, but some of the old ones murmer in the voices of whole communities.

John