For many years, Australian families were very poor, and generally the women were responsible for making all the bedding, as well as all the clothes and household fabrics. In the absence of money to buy good cloth, the women used their initiative. They used old sacks, old grain bags and anything that could be used to give warmth. With luck, they would be able to find or get something to make a bed cover more attractive, and the sacks would be used as the wadding or batting. Old cloth would be cut and stitched either directly onto the batting, or as a face quilt fabrics, and whatever artistic talent the maker had would be used.
Later on it became commonplace to obtain old sample quilting books from traveling salesmen. So many quilts were made with suit cloth, as well as old curtains, and what ever else was available.