Green and Peach Brocade Welsh Quilt

Here is a Welsh quilt with some slightly unusual quilting designs; I begin to think that almost every Welsh quilter had her own designs, because there seems to be a much greater variety of quilting motifs in the Welsh quilts than in the North Country quilts.





One side of the quilt is an attractive peach brocade, which was popular for decorating at that period...the other side is a plain green sateen cotton. From the cotton thread used and the stitching, we can see that the peach is the top side.

This quilt is smaller than some of the others at 67 inches square. It came from a dealer- Geoff from Brechfa, who enjoys going to country auctions and sometimes buys quilts. ( I have another red and white strippy that was bought by Geoff - the day was so bitterly cold that he bought the quilt for £5 to wrap around himself and keep warm - then later sold the quilt to me - a dual duty quilt...) This quilt is probably from Cardiganshire.

You can see that there are no fields or divisions marked out with straight lines of stitching here, although there is a general central area and a border area. You can see that the central area is framed by the oblong shapes, then there are two lines of circular motifs as borders. The quilting motifs include an oval motif with infill, spirals and a circle with spiral infill (looking vaguely like a tennis ball or a yin yan sign?) Still very Welsh but more individualistic to the quilter. No date, but probably later at 1920-1930.

I found this split in the fabric at one corner, you can see that the filling is carded wool, and not a blanket as is often the case. The photo also shows the brocade with the "primroses".

Not an expensive quilt, but one with a certain charm to it - I like the peach coloured fabric and the quirky designs. Certainly not RIB!!