Strip Quilt with Diamonds from Ashington

Here is an older strip quilt from Northumberland. It is a large quilt, at 91 x 102 inches. The plain strips, of a cream cotton with tiny brown and green leaf motifs,  alternate with blue and white pieced strips. 

The quilting is hard to see, but is mostly cross hatching. Around the outside is a large twist, and then a triangular pattern with a lobed motif.

This quilt has all been hand pieced and the edge is neatly hand sewn. The filling is a thin cotton, which may have been thicker once - perhaps thinned by repeated washing?

This quilt came from a house clearance in Ashington, Northumberland. Ashington was once a centre for coal mining. The house belonged to the seller's Grandmother, a lady named Hilda Revington.

Quilting, a large twist pattern...

The quilt is somewhat worn at either end. Many of the longer plain strips are pieced. I measured the plain strips and these varied from 6 3/4 to 7 inches. I wonder if, when making strippy quilts, the strips were torn, not cut? Certainly, with the two unquilted tops that I own, this is the case. It may account for the variability of the strips. The pieced strips are all 6 inches wide.

My feeling is that this is an earlier quilt, but perhaps from someone who did not own a sewing machine (quite costly items in those days) so perhaps turn of the century. The fabrics are what we would call workaday fabrics....last quarter of the 19C.

BQSG Seminar at Bath University - October 2016

In October, I attended the 2016 Seminar of The British Quilt Study Group, which was held in Bath. As I have a new  part-time job, which is less flexible than previous ones, I was not able to attend the study day on the Friday. It was held at the Museum of Costume, held in the basement of the Assembly Rooms. I understand that it was excellent!

I arrived late, and took the bus up to Bath University, where the seminar was being held - I got totally lost, wandered far and wide but could not find where the evening meal was being held - I finally called into student counselling (open, but not busy on a Friday evening) and was very kindly given directions....

I always enjoy going to this seminar, as it visits places that I would not otherwise have reason to visit. Bath is firmly on the tourist trail, but I had not visited in many years and was keen to see it again. But in addition, Ron Simpson was a speaker and I was very interested to listen to someone that I had always heard about as a major British quilt collector and quilt enthusiast.

Ron now lives in Thailand for the winter, and returns to London for the warmer months - and who can blame him! I cannot show all that he brought, but perhaps a few photos will suffice....

A small item - a dogs head made from incredibly tiny hexagons - never finished and you can see why - a real labour of love, this one...

Ron Simpson with Bridget Long...

Ron's talk was very informal; we gathered 'round on the stage while he uncovered the various items that he had brought along.....

This was a small strippy - cot sized.....these items collected over many years with some good finds in the days when perhaps more was available with less knowledge of textiles..

A quilt made from wool off cuts..

and the famous Welsh quilt with the cow in the centre...very charming...

A classic Amish Centre Diamond quilt...as Ron said, the feathers on American quilts are generally much looser than those on British quilts...

Quilting stitches on the Amish Centre Diamond...

Some of the quits were very striking....

The food was good as ever, and the papers were once again very interesting. The results of Dorothy Osler's study into the Spennymore Quilters was shared.

The hotels in Bath tend to be very expensive, so several of us stayed at the YMCA, which was fine for budget accommodation. I had taken the train, so no problem with cars and parking....

The venue of next years seminar is still to be decided - the problem seems to be the cuts in government funding. Many collections of textiles do not have curators or are currently closed. The collections still exist but are not available for viewing, even to specialist groups......

Sage and Orange Welsh Quilt

Here is a typical Welsh quilt in cotton sateen. The colours are very attractive in a faded, muted sort of way ....a faded blue green and an orange colour. I wonder what they looked like when new!

The centre is a bit unusual...no centre "coin" here - it is a diamond with crosshatching - and a heart with spirals in each corner next to that....

The single border has a leaf and spirals in each corner, and the rest is simple but effective crosshatch and that X block......

Another photo of the centre...

The hearts are very attractive...

At first, I thought that there were "pennies" or circles in the border.....but it is a simple twist...

But you can see that it was probably marked with an old fashioned penny, as the shape fits almost exactly....

There are also some small propeller shapes - the quilters liked these devices to fill up any empty spaces.

The photos did not come out very well - the colours although muted are a lot more vivid than these photos show.

This quilt measures 69 x 77". By chance, it came from a clearance of a house not far from me, in Laxfield Suffolk. The seller wrote - "All the quilts came from my cousin. He was a very flamboyant man who had a house literally crammed to the rafters with antiques. He rarely used anything new. He drank from Georgian glassware and ate off antique plates. Sadly he lost his battle with cancer earlier this year. The auctioneer didn't want to take the quilts so I put them here. I don't think that he bought much at auction. He liked antique markets and shops, but who knows. How he ever fitted so much stuff into his small house is beyond me."