Jo Haywood previews a new exhibition that gives a fascinating glimpse 'through the needle's eye'.

QUILTING is addictive. It begins slowly with a couple of fabric scraps clumsily tacked together. Then, before you know it, you are sewing intricate creations that take years to complete.

Helen Young, manager of the Yorkshire Museum in York, is one of the growing number of women in the UK to become hooked on quilting.

She was involved in making church banners and decided to take a quilting evening class to hone her skills.

"I never went back to banners after that," she said. "Quilting completely took over my life."

She is now a rep for the Quilters' Guild and is a member of a monthly quilting group.

Her work would certainly not look out of place on the walls at York Art Gallery, where visitors will be able to see 20 quilts from York Castle Museum's 100-strong collection when the gallery reopens on March 19 after a complete overhaul.

The exhibition, which celebrates 250 years of British quilt-making, is being mounted to coincide with the publication of a new book, Through The Needle's Eye - The Patchwork And Quilt Collection At York Castle Museum, written by curator of costume and textiles Josie Sheppard.

She has created a complete catalogue of the museum's collection, describing quilting techniques and styles as well as telling the human stories behind the stitches.

Among the exhibits are a small quilt commemorating the wedding of Princess Charlotte of Wales and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg in 1816; a table cover from 1880-90 featuring verses from two hymns worked in clear glass beads on velvet; and a red and white 'signature' bedcover - people made a donation to have their name embroidered on the quilt - which raised £10 12s 6d for St John's School in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.

"Quilting didn't really take off as a hobby until the early 19th century," Josie explained. "Before that it had been used as practical padding for armour or to add warmth to clothes.

"It took off in Victorian times because domestic labour was cheap, fabric was inexpensive and widely available thanks to the industrial revolution and women with money had time on their hands."

As Helen can confirm, quilting can easily eat up your leisure time.

"There are a lot of quilt widowers out there," she said. "Once you get started it's difficult to stop, so housework tends to get pushed aside.

"If you change one letter of quilt you get guilt - which is what a lot of quilters suffer from as they spend every waking moment on their hobby."

She is currently working on a group quilt for the National Trust. When it is finally completed this summer, it will have taken two years of dedicated stitching.

And it is not only Helen's time that quilting fills - her house is pretty full too.

"Every quilter has an ever-increasing stash of fabric," she said. "We all have our fair share of UFOs too - unfinished fabric objects."

The only way to see the Castle Museum's quilt collection in its entirety is to buy Josie's book. Once the art gallery exhibition closes on June 6, the quilts will be folded up and put back in their storage boxes.

"They are just too big to put on display," said Josie. "Most of them probably won't see the light of day again for at least a decade."

Updated: 16:49 Friday, March 04, 2005