Here is a quilt that is in very poor condition! It was probably made as a fund raiser. The winner of the raffle obviously used it - the corners and edges are worn. However, the interest is that the squares and setting triangles all have embroidered names which could be used in a research project.
The quilt has a central panel which states "Greengates Sunday School Christmas 1893".
The red and white squares all have a name embroidered on them. It looks as if the names were signed in ink and then embroidered, as there are a variety of handwriting styles. The embroidery has a lot of variety as well, a few not so well done, the rest nicely done in stem stitich, chain stitch and back stitch.
That is a cat's tail there! The squares are set diagonally, with setting triangles at the edge. The quilting is by hand.
It is a large quilt at 100 x 80 inches, and you can see the wear clearly in this photo. The quilt is in a rather tattered state.
The signatures usually have a first and a last name, rather than the initials sometimes found on these quilts - a real bonus for anyone doing research.
Corners usually receive a lot of wear, as with this corner. The wadding is of cotton. The binding has been sewn on by machine. The backing is a white cotton and has been taken to the front to make the binding.
You can see how the triangles also contain names. Family groups can be seen.
I did a bit of inital research online - it seems likely that this church was in Bradford, Yorkshire. The church is redundant now, and closed, but there are items about the war memorial on the internet.
This quilt was bought online for £120 - it had previously been bought for £450 ten years previously, at a craft fair in Cambridgeshire.
There is a "Signature Research Group" associated with BQSG. Anne Jeather researched another fundrasing quilt, from a Primitive Baptist church. There are Baptist archives which can be consulted. But most of the research was done online using ancestry websites. Another project for the retirement (when that finally comes in 3 or 4 years!!)
Thank you for sharing this quilt. I have passed on the link to a friend, MFSG and AQSG, who is doing research on similar quilts. She'll appreciate your post too. I also have recently purchased some Amish quilts in the same 'loved' state, and keep saying it's about preserving them for study. People shake their heads at me.
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