Fushia Welsh Quilt

Here is a recent purchase - a Welsh Quilt in a fushia or bright pink colour. The top is a shiny artificial satin fabric. It has a frill along two sides only, and is 82 x 86 inches. It is made in the traditional way, but has only a thin wadding. From the feel of it, the wadding is a thin woollen cloth. The backing is very unusual, a fabric with a honeycomb or waffle pattern. The stitching is neat with a dark pink thread. The quilt is in good condition apart from some fades along folds.

Here is a photo of the back, showing the honeycomb fabric.

The borders are neatly hand sewn with a running stitch, and the frills (along two sides only) are double sided and 6" wide.

Quilting patterns include spirals, four lobed designs and cross hatching. There is a central medallion which is a square subdivided into nine blocks, each of which has either a spiral design or a lobed design. The corner fans are rather odd heart outlines in a crosshatched area. So the quilting designs do follow the traditional patterns, but as so often happens with Welsh quilts, is rather individual, or autosyncratic, to the quilter. She was just quilting designs which were familiar and comfortable to her. Apart from the Rural Industries quilts, there were no standardised patterns for Welsh quilts, and they were much more individual and quirky.

Here is the quilt being checked out by Snowy, of course the cats do not have access to the quilt storage room and thus are always very interested in the quilts which come downstairs.

This quilt was undoubtedly a very elegant quilt in its day. The quilt was bought many years ago in a small antique shop in the Llandovery area.