The histories of the fabric arts and of digital technology have been woven together since the early nineteenth century when Ada, Countess of Lovelace, wrote of the use of the punchcards from the Jacquard weaving loom in the programming of Charles Babbage's proto-computer, the Analytical Engine, as `weaving' numbers and programming. Unsurprisingly, the histories of textiles and the digital are woven together even more tightly in the Digital Age. Today, digital quilts and other digital material culture produced in virtual worlds and online computer games raise profound questions for the future of museum practice and object-based academic disciplines. Digital sewing `computers' and websites such as the Quilt Index are shaping quilt history as it happens. This dissertation theorizes quilting, sewing and other fabric arts through the lens of (digital) technology. In this dissertation, I explore the ways in which technology has shaped the fabric arts, and how the fabric arts have shaped technology, from the Luddites to Ada Lovelace. I also examine the impact of the introduction of the sewing machine into the home, the Arts and Crafts Movement and the tension between machine and hand quilting, the decline of hand sewing skills, the use of quilts in research into artificial intelligence, the so-called `sewing computer' and the future of the networked quilter as humachine, and crafted objects in computer games and virtual worlds. I also investigate parallels between the political and philosophical tenets of Web 2.0 and the folk art and quilting ethos through such topics as participatory culture, open source, collective knowledge, collaboration and fair use.
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