Though quilting has a long history, likely more than five millennia, and takes various forms in many cultures, the block-style patchwork quilt became a "distinct expression" of nineteenth-century America, evolving into a representative folk art of interest to scholars that is still produced today. Eighteenth-century patchwork "was a ladies’ leisure pursuit" in both Europe and North America, with the earliest surviving specimens from Wiltshire in 1718 and Quebec in 1726 made of silk. The lack of information about earlier quilts made of humbler fabric, is partly attributed to such quilts being "intimately connected to everyday life" of the Dutch and English settlers in the New World. As a heritage object with distinctive patterns, the patchwork quilt has come to be particularly associated with Canada and the United States. A twenty-first-century offshoot is the barn quilt.