Quilts 1700-2010

The idea of an exhibition exploring the V&A's collection of quilts and patchwork was first raised five years ago, before the ripple of interest in once-prized and now endangered domestic skills became a wave - and long before the recession hit. The museum has a knack for spotting an important trend on the horizon; and as people began to embrace the philosophy of finding a use for what they would once have discarded and making things for themselves, expending time rather than money, what might have been a much smaller display for a niche audience grew into a major show.

Saturday will see the opening of an exhibition that has generated unprecedented advance ticket sales. There are quilters as far afield as America and Japan eagerly anticipating an expedition to examine in close detail some 65 quilts exploring 300 years of British quilt-making. Curator Sue Prichard, who is in charge of post-war textiles at the V&A, is a passionate advocate for the revival of traditional needlework skills (she's even started a staff quilting group at the museum), but the exhibition is about much more than the domestic sphere. While those international needlewomen will be very welcome, she is also hoping to attract an audience drawn by the many social and political stories uncovered by research into the history of the quilts and their owners and makers.

One of the standout exhibits is a witty appliquéd and patchworked coverlet sewn between 1803 and 1805 by an unknown maker. At the centre there's a panel showing George III reviewing volunteer troops in Hyde Park in 1799 on his birthday, June 4. The border consists of 40 vignettes showing well-known military and naval events, interspersed with domestic scenes. Like the centrepiece, the border events depicted are based on contemporary prints which, along with other clues, has led the museum to conjecture that the maker may have been associated with a printing press. Here and there a portrait, assumed to be of the artist herself, has been inserted into these lively depictions. There may be a bit of a bottleneck at this point in the show as visitors enjoy the gorgeous needlework and search for the 'Where's Wally?'-style appearances .

The quilts tell stories from every level of society. Ornate eighteenth-century patchwork hangings displayed on the four-poster that will greet visitors as they enter were made to flaunt the owner's wealth at a time when the bedroom of a well-to-do home was a public place.

In contrast, the women who in 1841 stitched The Rajah Quilt, on loan from the National Gallery of Australia, were convicts being transported to Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) aboard HMS Rajah. The materials donated by Elizabeth Fry's social reform initiative provided a constructive communal activity during the endless weeks at sea.

It's the first time that one of these transportation quilts has been shown in the UK, but even the V&A's own quilt collection, which forms the majority of the show, is normally in storage because, often large and fragile, quilts are tricky things to display. When I visited, sections of the exhibition were still a work in progress, with items being manoeuvred into position, but the exhibition design was looking promising. Some quilts are dramatically displayed against vivid walls, others are stretched out on bed-shaped plinths. Juxtaposing fabulous quilts with paintings and other exhibits that provide historical context, the exhibition casts its net wide enough to encompass quilts from different parts of Britain that show how the materials locally available influenced the predominant style of an area.

Works by contemporary artists sit alongside the historic quilts. Tracey Emin's installation 'To Meet My Past' (2003) provides the show's final flourish. At once barbed and beguiling, it consists of an elaborate bed dressed with blankets, sheets, duvet and curtains bearing stitched and appliquéd text. Emin is not the only contemporary artist to identify the potency of the quilt as canvas. Stitched using computer-controlled machinery to create a complex pattern, Grayson Perry's 'Right to Life' (1993) is at first glance simply strikingly beautiful. Closer inspection reveals that Perry has employed a foetus as a repeating motif in a work that uses the ambiguity of the quilt, traditionally a source of comfort, to address the complex issue of abortion. And 'The Presence of Absence' (2010), a devastating work by Jennifer Vickers consisting of more than 38,000 squares of plain and printed paper, each measuring just 1cm by 1cm, shows how civilian deaths in the second Iraq War have vastly outnumbered military losses.

It's an ambitious undertaking to nudge the revival of stitchcraft on its way in an exhibition that simultaneously promotes the importance of textile art, often scorned by sections of the art world, but the calibre of the work and the wealth of intriguing ideas on which these quilts shed light is both impressive and exciting.

For those who catch the stitching bug, the museum has organised a programme of activities during the show's run that ranges from day-long workshops for adults to drop-in family sessions at which visitors will be able to make a square to contribute to a giant quilt that will grow steadily during the Easter holidays. And in the museum shop, where there's been a sudden flurry of all things patchworked and quilted, there are fabrics and packs of ready-cut pieces based on textiles in the exhibition, produced by the V&A in conjunction with Liberty.