Welsh Centre Diamond Quilt...Very Worn...

Here is another Welsh quilt that I bought recently. It is very worn, so is a study or display item......it did not cost much.....only £10....

I like these geometric patterns. These were obviously to use up remnants of fabric that were available. Wales as you know was a very impoverished area....This quilt is made of damask or brocade type fabrics, the wadding is wool. I will have to look with my microscope at the fabrics to determine whether they are woollen or cotton.....

The stitching is interesting although crude, due to the thickness of the fabric...the photo doesn't show it very well, but there is a lot of bearding, where the woollen fibres have worked their was through the surface fabric, giving a whitish cast.

Another look at the centre!!

The back is a similar green brocade to the front, and the back is very worn .

In places, the fabric is worn away in areas that stood "proud". The quilt must have been very well used over the years.

A strange thing...there seems to be a cotton backing fabric inserted under some of the more worn areas ....was this an attempt at repair, or was the fabric already thinning in some areas when the quilt was made?

This quilt is all hand pieced and hand quilted. It could be an earlier quilt, or perhaps the family did not have a sewing machine....

I received a very nice note from the seller (from Swansea) who said that she had bought the quilt at auction 30-40 years ago, she knew that the quilt had been passed down in one family and thought it might be from Pembrokeshire. She had thought to cut it down and make it into a wall hanging, but used it as a table cover and then later hung it over a banister before recently moving to a smaller house.

This quilt ties in very nicely with the "Amish Connection" and Dorothy Osler's book on the subject.