Applique Pots of Flowers Top

Here is an unfinished quilt top - it is very large at 90 x 104 ". Perhaps it just grew and grew, as many tops do, and then was never finished off!

The quilt top is made of applique flowers set with plain blocks. The fabrics are a mixture of prints and plains, and have a perky charm to them.

Narrow green borders are seen together with smaller flowers and leaves.

The cats had a look......

It looks a bit rumpled, but nothing that won't "quilt out"....

Pink flowers....

Blue flowers...

Purple flowers...

Even green flowers...but all have similar colour pots....

The rather pastel colours remind me of 30's colour schemes - especially that green colour, which at one time was very popular. This quilt top has been made solely by hand - even the long borders are sewn by hand, not by machine. The seller was located outside Edinburgh, and this top came to them with other linen; nothing more is known about it. So it could be British or it could be North American.....there was much cross over, both amongst patterns and also quilters, so it is difficult to be certain where it originally came from. A very jolly sort of pattern!

Small Welsh Quilt?

Here is a small quilt. It was originally bought by the seller in Greenwich Village in NYC - so could be Welsh, North Country or possibly French.

The size is what I would term a child's quilt - too large for a cot quilt at 49 x 55 inches. The style is a frame...a pink print with diamond hand quilting in the centre....

Then, hand stitched swirls with fans and flowers around the edges...

The edge is neatly hand stitched.

The centre has somewhat of a French boutis feel to it...

The reverse is a pale print with a small fern motif - difficult to know what the original colour was.

The reverse - a printed fabric. Like most cot quilts and children's quilts, one feels that it must have been much used and much loved, so the shabby quality adds to the charm, I think..

What so you think, Welsh, Durham or French?

Quilt Studies 17

My copy of Quilt Studies arrived on Saturday....it contains the written versions of the papers we heard at a BQSG seminar held in October 2015 in Brighton Grove, Manchester.

The article that I find most interesting is the one by Clare Claridge, "The Quilt Wives of Aberdare".

The article sets out in detail the story of the quilting initiative of the Rural Industries Bureau in Wales. Leading quilters in the Aberdare area are identified, and to the rear, some quilting designs set out.

Other articles are: "Pride of Place: The Bed and its Furniture: An Analysis of 88 Wills (1580-1680) from North Staffordshire and South Cheshire by Paula Hulme; Egyptian Quilting: The Documentation, Structural Analysis and Conservation of Two Mamluk Caps in the Newberry Collection, University of Leeds, by Jacqueline Hyman; The History of Cyanotype (Blueprinting) and its Use in Photography, Industry Art and Textiles, by Dr Cathy C Michel; A Stitch in Time by Jennifer Vickers.

Copies of this Quilt Studies can be purchased from The Quilt Museum, York.

Crossley And Bancroft Shuttles

Some years ago, our BQSG seminar was held in Burnley, Lancashire. The area was once one of the most important in fabric production in the past. Susan L., her husband and I just managed to squeeze in a visit to the Queen Street Mill Museum.....and I was mightily impressed! Although only a small fraction of the weaving looms had been preserved, when the huge room of looms was turned on, what a noise! No wonder the workers lost their hearing and thus were adept at lip reading and sign language. Fabrics were an important part of Britains industrial history, now almost vanished...

So I was pleased to find this shuttle....it is a flying shuttle to be used in a weaving machine, as proved by the metal tips. Hand weaving shuttles lack these metal tips, which would be too sharp for the weavers hands....

This shuttle was made by Crossleys. The firm was located at Woodbottom Mill, Hollins Road, Walsden, Todmorden in Yorkshire. Crossleys closed in 2006, after 118 years of manufacturing shuttles of all sizes for automatic and non-automatic looms. The reason given for closure was the decline of the British textile industry and foreign competition.

The detail of the shuttle is pretty amazing, and shows great engineering...this is the end feed mechanism...

There is still a spool of artificial silk in the shuttle. The little brushes must facilitate the movement or get rid of fluff? Not sure! So sturdily made....yet not vastly different to ones found in archaelogical sites!

Fabric is a wonderful product....

I was so intrigued by the shuttle that I bought two more - different silk colours this time, and by a different maker - these are made by Bancroft of Blackburn. Given the incredible number of looms in Britain formerly, there must still be very many of these shuttles still floating about, as these cost very little. I think that they are very decorative....