White Allendale with Star Centre

A white Allendale quilt which was stamped with a large star pattern enclosing the central design.

This quilt came from a house clearance on Tyneside, so no real provenance. It is worn along the sides, but has some nice stitching to see. The size is a double bed size, 78 x 90 inches. The earlier quilts were square but gradually the quilts became rectangular in size.


This quilt is white on both sides, but one side may have originally been light blue as one side has a definate blueish cast.

The central dedign has a central rose surrounded by flat iron motifs, the whole surrounded by two triple lined squares forming a star effect.

The quilt is rather worn and the cotton sateen has gone very soft; the edges are worn.

The border is a typical swag border, with trefoils at the junction of the swags.The diamond infill is neatly quilted.

Another view of the swag border and the triple lined star of the centre.

One interesting detail on this quilt is that it has "the edge" as set out by Pauline Adams, whereby one edge was seamed together ( ie back and front sewn together along one end) before the quilt was set into the frame. This edge does look different than the other three (as it lacks the neat hand stitiching of the other three) , and you can see that along this side the wadding does not reach the edge of the quilt as it does on the other sides. Although not recorded in the literature, this must have been a widespread technique as I have found it on several of my quilts. There is a fuller explanation of this edge treatment in my "Hawick Quilt" post of 27 April 2010.

Navy Allendale - Ayr

Here is an Allendale quilt which came from an auction in Ayr, Scotland. Marked tops from Allendale were sent to all parts of Britain, including Scotland and Wales. The quilt is a double bed size, at 80 x 93 inches.


This quilt did not cost me much as it has been dyed navy at some point. Quilts were expensive items, and if they got stained they were thrown in the dye pot to disguise this - they certainly were not thrown away. No "throw away society" then! You can see that the colour is uneven and you can see the stain in parts. There is also a big "bite" out of the edge on one side...

The centre of the quilt is a lovely star motif -There is a central rose surrounded by diamonds - the diamonds have the traditional rose and fern as quilting patterns enclosed in them. There are also large feather motifs. Stars were a popular motif - both as a central quilting design and as the Sanderson Star,a patchwork pattern.

The edge treatment is nice - goose wings with a large corner leaf motif. A goose wing is a curved, one sided feather. It looks good in pairs, or as here, end to end as a graceful border. Swags and goose wings are the most common borders in Allendale quilts.

Another look at the large feather motif - you can see that the stitching is of a good quality on this quilt. What colour would it have been originally? White or another light colour?

A view of the edge of the quilt, showing the single line of machine stitching around the edge. This is a quilt which demonstrates some of the other major quilting designs marked by the Allendale quilt stampers.

White Allendale

Another quilt which appears grey in the photo but which is in fact a lovely white quilt. This quilt was only bought recently - what attracted me to this quilt was the fact that it has very similar quilting designs to the light blue Allendale quilt. While that quilt was in poor condition, this quilt is in unused condition. It still has the sizing in the fabric and clearly was never used.

The size is 81 x 96 inches, for a double bed and rectangular in size.


The design is clearly a stamped design, and is very similar to that on the Blue Allendale and also the two examples shown in the Beamish book, Quilts and Coverlets. All clearly by the same hand, the little hand marked feathers are so distinctive. There is one mark on the quilt, which you can see in this photo but otherwise in very good condition. Date is about 1900-1910.

The swag border is slightly different - not a fleur de lys but a circle with three feathers poking out as a corner device - also notice that the swags have trefoils not roses.

Central area very similar - except - can you see that surrounding the central rose, there is a circle of straight feathers or ferns. I find it difficult to tell the difference between these two patterns - Lilian says that in feathers the lines and ends are curved whereas in leaves the lines are straight and the ends pointed. The stitching in this quilt is very neat and well done. As was common, there are two lines of machine stitching around the edge of the quilt.

Another look at the corner design. What I cannot understand is that there is no blue pencil to be seen on this quilt. Some of the older quilts have been intensively used and washed and yet traces of blue pencil still remain. However here, with the quilt is pristine condition, there is no trace to be seen. Was there a special way to wash the quilt to get rid of the markings? Were a variety of different pencils used? I don't know!!

Detail of the pierced ferns which are typical of Allendale quilts. You can also see the ring of straight feathers/ferns surrounding the central rose.

The 3/4 inch diamond infill is well marked and well stitched and looks very elegant. This quilt in white would have been a "best" quilt.

Corner of the quilt - corner rose plus the machine stitching on the knife edge to create a firm edge to the quilt. Post war, the Womens' Institute had exhibitions where any quilts with this treatment were disqualified - the WI only approved of hand stitched edges - and yet it was a widely used technique.

No provenance for this quilt. It came from a large collection of quilts where no information was recorded.

New Pink Allendale

Having traced the patterns from the old quilt, I decided that it would be fun to recreate the quilt and make a new one. It is always hard to find suitable, high quality fabrics for wholecloth quilts, but I had a top in pink polished cotton from Strawberry Fayre left over from my week with Lilian Hedley at Sedbergh.

I had devised a light table from four wrapped bricks and a large sheet of perspex with a fluorescent light below. Turning the polythene over so that none of the Sharpie ink could transfer to the fabric, and securing the fabric with pins, I was able to trace the markings on to the fabric with a mechanical pencil. Of course, I had to use a very light hand. A problem was that the old quilt had shrunk and did not fit my exact rectangle on the new top- so some cutting out and rearranging of the border elements was required. Another problem was the 3/4 inch grid - I tried and failed, twice, to hand draft a pattern - the errors quickly magnified. Eventually I printed out a 3/4"grid from the computer and taped many A4 sheets together until I had a large enough piece - I then reoriented it to be diamonds - trimmed - and used this to trace the infill. Although the paper pattern wasn't as sturdy, this worked really well and the diamonds all joined up perfectly at the four quarters. It took me a whole Bank Holiday weekend (three days) to transfer the markings onto the top - so I am filled with admiration for the professional quilt stampers who were said to be able to mark one or two tops per day with their helpers.

I used wool wadding which gives a better appearance with hand quilting but of course the original quilt had a cotton wadding. Here I am at the quilting frame - it is a Q-Snap which I find good to work at. I am already on number 2 - they don't last forever, the outer clamps eventually crack as the whole is made of plastic.

The centre of the quilt with its central rose, pierced ferns and pomegranate type motif.

Corner of the quilt where you can see the fleur de lys, swags and curlicue infill. The edge is the traditional knife edge where the edges are turned in - NO binding on British quilts!!

Another photo of the centre and corner designs of the quilt.

This is the stall at the 2010 Festival of Quilts where I was able to display the old and new quilts. I really enjoyed this.

I have more old quilts in this style to show you.

Allendale Quilt Stampers

I am going to begin a series of posts on Allendale quilts - these are the quilts that were marked by professional quilt "stampers" in the Allendale area of Northumberland. Over the course of several posts, I will relate some background information, and then present several stamped quilts to you.

Allendale, in the northern Pennine Dales, Northumberland, was an important lead mining area, but also famed for its experienced quilters. As the mines declined after 1860, many people emigrated or moved elsewhere in search of work. Those who stayed had to find other sources of income.

George Gardiner was a successful shop owner and hat-trimmer in the village of Dirt Pot. He became famous for his quilt designs, developing a quilt format that would be used for the next 100 years. He had many apprentices, the best known of whom was Elizabeth Sanderson, who worked from c. 1875 to her death in 1934.

These quilt designers were called stampers because it was commonly supposed that there was a special transfer method to put the blue markings onto the cloth. In fact, a durable blue pencil that would not easily rub off was used for the marking. The markings had to withstand parcelling, posting, peddling and finally quilting, sometimes by inexperienced quilters. the markings did eventually come out, although many quilters were proud of having a specially marked quilt and preferred to keep the quilts unwashed.