Patchwork is something made by sewing together small pieces of different fabrics, creating a colorful pattern of squares, rectangles, or other shapes. A patchwork quilt might combine dozens of fabric scraps: flowered cotton from an old dress, plaid from a worn shirt, solid colors from leftover curtain material. Each piece connects to its neighbors, and together they form something useful and often beautiful.

Before factories made cheap cloth, people saved every scrap of fabric because textiles were expensive and valuable. Making patchwork quilts let families use worn-out clothing and leftover fabric pieces to create warm bedding. Today, many quilters still practice this traditional craft, carefully selecting and arranging fabric pieces to create intricate designs.

The word also describes anything made of mixed, distinct parts joined together. A farmer's patchwork of fields might show rectangles of corn, wheat, and soybeans side by side. A patchwork solution to a problem uses several different approaches stitched together. When politicians create patchwork legislation, they're combining separate ideas into one law, though the result might not be as neat and unified as a well-planned quilt.