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I am a quilter living in Woodbridge, Suffolk who has made quilts since I was a teenager. I also ring bells! Both are great British traditions....I will try to feature some of my antique Welsh and Durham quilts, the quilts I make myself, my quilting activities and also some of my bellringing achievements. Plus as many photos as I can manage. NB: Double click on the photos to see greater detail, then use back button to return to the main page.













Wednesday 16 November 2011

"Comfy" Quilts

I have two "Comfy" quilts - this is the very-much-used one. These quilts came in a great variety of colours, but this diamond shape was the standard variety. You still see a lot of these about - they were factory-made quilts and they did supplant the hand sewn quilts although they were not cheap to buy.

Jan Rae's article will give a lot of detailed information on these quilts. Her talk was fascinating but unfortunately I did not take notes. Comfy quilts were made by the British Quilting Company in Holt Holme Mill, Waterfoot, Rawtenstall, Rossendale. The company was difficult to track down, it was no longer registered with Companies House - but cleverly, Jan was able to check the registered logo and discover the company details that way. She was then able to access local records and archives. Also, through day exhibits in two local libraries, Jan was able to meet former employees. The company was a relatively large and prosperous company in its heyday, but the company closed in 1970 after sales fell off.



The two sides of the quilt are reversed plain and print fabric - that is because the diamond shape was cut out from the (already quilted) quilt sandwich and the shape turned over. Then the cut edges were covered with a tape and the edges sewn down. The quilting was always done in a zigzag pattern by a special quilting machine imported from America.


Here is my better "Comfy" quilt - it is unused, but it is a wholecloth type in a green print - no diamond shape here.




And here is the fabric Comfy label. Sometimes there is a paper label as well. Most of the quilts have long since lost their labels. Quite a few people grew up sleeping under one of these quilts!

2 comments:

  1. I love your blog and have learned so much from reading it. I particularly liked the ability to enlarge the photos to see the quilting. Sadly, since Google Blogger added the lightbox feature, and from what I have learned did so without discussing it with folks who owned the blog, it is really difficult to fully appreciate the photographs. I learned that the following url tells blog owners how to eliminate the lightbox feature. Would you consider doing so? http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/10/how-to-disable-bloggers-lightbox.html
    Thank you for a wonderful blog.
    Rose Huskey

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rose, thanks for your kind comments and the helpful link. I hope that it has gone back to the way it was previously, now. Pippa

    ReplyDelete