Welsh Woven Blankets at the Quilt Museum

Before I show you the quilts from the Minerva Centre, I just thought that I would show you the woven woollen blankets that were on display in a side room of Jen Jones' Quilt Museum. The shop has been selling A LOT of blankets recently - more than quilts - and Hazel from the shop thought that some of the blankets from the collection should also be on display. Some of these blankets have clear similarities with the Welsh quilts. Or is it that the quilts mimic the blankets? At one time, there were many, many local mills in Wales producing woollen fabrics and woven blankets. A few still survive.


Woven blanket commemorating Canaervon Castle and the University of Wales. Notice the woven leeks in the border!!

A woven blanket that has similar borders and patches to a quilt - and also looks rather Amish, if you ignore the brown colour (not a favorite colour in the conservative communities) .

Woven coverlet - looks like the patterns that my grandmother used to weave on her loom - and notice the borders again.

Stack of older woven blankets - these were woven on narrow looms, thus have a seam down the middle where two widths were joined together. Very collectible now.

The price of these Welsh blankets has shot up recently - they are nice to have on a bed and do look very cosy. As long as you use them and keep moving them, moths shouldn't be a problem.

Quilt Museum at Lampeter - 3

The final lot of photos taken at the Jen Jones Welsh Quilt Centre, Old Town Hall, Lampeter. As before, I am not including too much information. I would strongly encourage you to buy the catalog (available in English or Welsh), which contains more information on these quilts, from http://www.jen-jones.com/. There will also be a DVD available soon, which will have photos of all three exhibitions, together with more detailed commentary on a few of the quilts.

Here is my favorite quilt of the show - a stunning yellow wholecloth with just beautiful quilting. Both sides were available for inspection.

A closer look at the quilting, which includes "coins" spirals, fans, chevrons and more. Made by Anna Davies of Whitland, Carmarthenshire.

Scalloped edge cot quilt circa 1930.

I found these photos in the hall. The quilters in the larger photo were from Solva and the photographer was Margaret Wright. I wonder who the man in the other photo is?

Here he is in another photo, talking to Jen and Roger.

I was interested to see this quilting frame, with part of a quilt still attached and the quilt backing.

The quilting shows the traditional Welsh leaves and spirals

Applique quilt which doesn't seem to be in the catalog!!

Beautiful array of red and white quilts. The one on the bed is from Llanybydder, late 19th C - the one on the wall is from the 1890's.

Well, that is the end of my photos from Jen's exhibition - next, photos from The Quilt Association at the Minerva Centre.

Quilt Museum at Lampeter - 2

Here are some more photos taken at the Jen Jones Welsh Quilt Centre, Old Town Hall, Lampeter. As before, I am not including too much information. I would strongly encourage you to buy the catalog (available in English or Welsh), which contains more information on these quilts, from http://www.jen-jones.com/. There will also be a DVD available soon, which will have photos of all three exhibitions, together with more detailed commentary on a few of the quilts.

Patchwork quilt from Ammanford, dated 1893.

Handkerchief quilt, Carmarthenshire about 1900.

Display which includes a pink and blue patchwork from the Lampeter area, 1920's.

A beautiful red and white strippy - it won a prize for May Thomas of Llanelli in 1901. This quilt was another that had to be sent off to a conservator for cleaning - Jen said that it was returned with a little packet containing the removed dirt and grime.

The Treaga family immigrated to Pennsylvania, so this quilt has definite American overtones although the quilting is pure Welsh.

Patchwork quilt with appliqued hearts.

Basket quilt, mid Wales.

Applique quilt made in 1890's by Catherine James.

Happy Halloween!!

Here are some pumpkin and squash blocks; the patterns were taken from Ruth McDowell's book "Pieced Vegetables".

Head over to the Passionpatchwork blog at http://passionpatchwork.wordpress.com/ to see another version of this pumpkin block. I was impressed to find out that the book has been translated into French - "Legumes en Patchwork" - as in all my years of teaching I have only ever met one other person who had bought this book! It's an odd book but I love it.....

Here is a Turk's Head squash block - I love choosing the colours for these blocks and playing around with them - "auditioning them " - to see what happens, before sewing the pieces together - its amazing how the most unlikely fabrics seem to "work" in this type of design.

I have ALL of Ruth's books and enjoy looking at her work.

I never used to buy fat quarters of fabric - only yardage - but of course small pieces are ideal for this type of work as you only need a small amount of each. And Ruth likes the rather outrageous fabrics - they work very well for her - I could never bring myself to buy very much of some of these fabrics - but after a trip up to Kisco in Leicester several years ago, I came away with an arm full of fat quarters in "loud" fabrics with large prints that were great fun. There are some hand dyed fabrics in here as well.

Happy Halloween!

More photos from Lampeter, Minerva and Gregynog soon.

Quilt Museum at Lampeter - 1

Having gone to Jen Jones' shop, I headed over to Jen Jones' Quilt Museum - this was much easier to find! Lampeter is a smallish town and the quilt museum is in the former Town Hall. It is easy to park and walk to the museum.

The Town Hall building renovation was meant to be a joint venture between the town council and Jen and her husband. But the council funding did not materialise and Jen and Roger had to make the brave decision to go ahead on their own. The numbers of visitors have been building up over three years - the lighting is now where they want it to be - and this third exhibition is just right in my opinion. "Less is More" but there seemed to be plenty of quilts hanging in the main room!

I include some photos but I am not including too much information. I would strongly encourage you to buy the catalog (available in English or Welsh) from www.jen-jones.com. There will also be a DVD available soon, which will have photos of all three exhibitions, together with more detailed commentary on a few of the quilts.

Jen Jones in front of an amazing blue and white quilt from Oakford - this quilt was sent off to the conservators for cleaning and looks amazing now.
I enjoyed meeting Jen and really enjoyed her talk to the BQSG group at Gregynog on Saturday evening.

A zany yellow and blue quilt from Rhuddlan near Llanybbder, which features on the cover of the catalog.

Another photo of the blue and white quilt.

A log cabin quilt from North Wales, where the quilting tradition seems to have been similar to the Cumbrian quilts, rather than the South Wales quilts we are accustomed to.

A Welsh strippy in blue and white, laid out on a bed form.

This was my favourite - a quilt from Pembrokeshire with spots!!

A lovely quilt from Merthyr Tydfil. A very early quilt.

Lovely quilting on a blue and white print quilt, probably from near Brecon.

I have more photos to share. Next year's exhibition at Lampeter will showcase the Amish-Welsh connection and will be in conjunction with the publication of Dorothy Osler's new book. This book is due to be available in December, and has been ten years in the making. Not only will there be quilts from Jen's collection in next year's show, but it will also feature a selection of Amish quilts from the American Museum's collection at Staverton Manor near Bath - should be a "must see" exhibition!!

Cottage Shop in Llanybydder nr Lampeter

I am back from Wales where I had a very enjoyable weekend. My little car did a total of 675 miles; she got up the steep hills even if she was surprised to have to drop down to second gear (not usual in flat Suffolk!!)

I left Woodbridge about 10 am and did not arrive in Lampeter until 6.00. I headed off to the approximate area of the B & B I had booked - got out the instructions that I had carefully printed off - but was shocked to find that I had printed off the wrong ones (it turns out that there is a similarly named and addressed B & B in North Wales). I had to get the telephone number from Mike in Suffolk - made contact with the owners - then managed to take the wrong road! By this time I was very tired and was glad when the owner met me in his car at the now very-familiar crossroads. Two and a half miles up a small track!! Very pretty, but too dark now to see the scenery...

I had intended to have a walk down the lane the next morning, but it was showery so after breakfast and a play with a very cute British shorthair ginger kitten I set off for Jen Jones' quilt shop in Llanybydder. Thank goodness for mobile phones - I had to be (again) talked in by Hazel at the shop - and even then, ended up at the local cattle market, having taken the wrong left hand turn.

Finally! the Cottage shop, which is a listed building. Jen lives nearby. All the photography of the quilts is done outside here - I was interested to see "the gate".

The better quilts are kept upstairs - a very narrow flight of stairs has to be negotiated- there are several beds with layers of quilts on them.

Beds with quilts. The ceiling was low, a good impression of how houses may have been in former times...

Here is a nice patchwork quilt with some good quilting designs, Hazel says this will probably sell quickly once she has time to put it up on the website...I had not realised the fact that frills are not liked by buyers - the frills look a bit silly and stick out, apparently, if the quilt is not the right size for the bed. Thus the frills are often removed from the quilts to make them more saleable.

Some stacks of red and paisley quilts....

Stacks of quilts...

The more rustic quilts and the blankets are kept downstairs. Blankets are selling very well at the moment. They used to be sourced very cheaply, and resold at a reasonable price - however, supplies are fewer these days and prices are rising steeply. The older blankets are especially collectable now. I was interested to see a moth trap - pheromones lure in any male moths that are present, to alert of any moth infestation.

More blankets in the downstairs room.

The window downstairs, with its Staffordshire dogs....

A quick visit here - then it was off to Jen's Quilt Museum in Lampeter.

Off to Lampeter and Gregynog

I am off to Wales tomorrow. I have been working like fury to get everything done at work! I plan to drive to Lampeter to see the Jen Jones collection there. It was difficult to book a B & B near Lampeter- apparently there is a large construction project going on and workmen have booked all the places - but managed to find one - I'll post some photos when I get back!

Perhaps there will be time to go to Jen's shop at Llanbydder. Also if time allows, I'll go to the Quilt Association at Llanidloes. We'll see - I just have very little idea of driving times in Wales - I seem to recall that it took much longer than expected to get around!

Then on Friday evening its the BQSG seminar at Gregynog. There's been a lot of preparation work gone into this so I'm hoping it goes smoothly.

Yesterday I bought one of the Frixion pens, to test for marking quilting. Any opinions as to how good these are? Last night I gave in and ordered some Inktense pencils online - I couldn't find any locally - I also ordered the embellishment and applique book by Vaine online. I also have two old Welsh quilts arriving from Llanelli soon - so it will seem like Christmas for me next week!

More photos to follow next week with a report.