Strip-weaving is common among various West African ethnic groups. Both the Ashanti and Ewe of Ghana make kente cloth using narrow looms. Weavers, who are mostly male, alternate between weft-faced and  warp-faced sections, and sew these  long strips  of  fabric  together in an offset pattern to create the checkerboard effect for which kente cloth is known. Many strips—usually 16 - 24—are sewn together in order to produce fabrics wide enough for men’s and women’s wrapped and draped garments.

Visually, kente cloth is similar to the American “one patch” quilt pattern, in which same-size squares repeat across the surface of a quilt. In terms of construction, however, kente is more related to strip-piecing, in which long pieces of fabric are sewn together to create a new, larger piece of cloth.

Masquerades are central to Igbo society, and feature costumes, masks, singing, dancing, and storytelling. In addition to providing entertainment and reinforcing community standards through the performance of morality tales, many masquerades create a bridge between the physical and spirit worlds. Igbo   cosmology  does not include a single, all-powerful deity; thus, various nature gods and animal and ancestral spirits are seen as powers to be appealed to for assistance, or even rejected if found to be inadequately helpful. Masquerading brings humans and spirits into contact with one another, helping to keep the two domains in balance.

The Kasai river region of the Democratic Republic of the  Congo is home to a set of ethnic groups known collectively as the Kuba. Traditionally, the Kuba maintained hierarchical societies in which they communicated status through the display of various types of raffia cloth. Although cut-pile velvet is the most  famous type of Kuba cloth, appliqué and patchwork textiles are also common.

Raffia palm leaflets are ideal for harvesting fiber when they are between three and four feet long. For this reason, weavers have generally been limited to creating small panels that could be stitched together to make larger pieces of fabric. Men’s and women’s ceremonial skirts, for example, often run longer than ten feet, and can be made from as many as ten panels. Raffia fabrics can also be cut apart to make pieced and appliquéd shapes. Some of the abstract appliqué forms are thought to be symbolic, but many scholars believe they simply serve the practical purpose of covering up holes in the relatively weak raffia fabrics.

Adire is a traditional indigo-dyed fabric made by the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria. Artisans—usually women—use a variety of resist methods to achieve their designs: tying, stitching, and painting or stenciling with a starchy cassava paste. After the resist is applied, the fabric is dyed with indigo. When the ties, stitches, or paste are removed, designs are revealed as white or light  blue  patterns against a dark blue background. Adire cloth is often worn by women as a “wrapper”—a large square of cloth tied around the body as a simple skirt or dress.

In recent years, adire fabrics have been used in a new way—to make quilts. In 1988, Nigerian artisan and entrepreneur Nike Okundaye established an art center in Osogbo, Nigeria for teaching traditional handicrafts, and especially adire, which was in danger of dying out. Okundaye introduced American-style quiltmaking so that her students could produce adire items that were attractive to both Nigerians and tourists. Today, these products help artisans make a living through their craftsmanship.