Royal Wedding - Llwynywermod

Did you watch the Royal Wedding this morning? Wasn't it good fun? I enjoy the pomp and sense of history. And, I enjoyed listening to the bellringing from the Westminster Abbey bells. The bellringers were all invited, and were a highly experienced band. Included was David C Brown from St Peter Mancroft, Norwich - a highly respected ringer with over 4000 peals to his name. The ringers had to go through security at 8.30 this morning, and will not be let out until 4 this afternoon. But they will be ringing a full peal today.

As it is Royal Wedding Day, I thought that I would set out below a piece that I wrote in 2008 on the Prince of Wales' Welsh home,Llwynywermod.
Prince Charles can be considered a collector of Welsh quilts.

In June 2008, Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall attended an opening ceremony for their new "environmentally friendly" Welsh country house. Costing 1.2 million pounds, and with 1.8 million spent on renovations, it is located within the Black Mountains National Park at Mddfai near Llandovery. The Llwynywermod Estate contains not only an 18C farmhouse, but a 192 acre organic farm. It is found at the end of a long lane and is set in what was once a mediaeval deerpark. The views of the rolling countryside include the estate's ruined monastery.

It took the Prince's agents three years to find a suitable property. Historic and secluded, with a lovely range of old farm buildings, it will be used as a Welsh base for the Prince's annual visits. The farmhouse had previously been used as a B & B, and had a range of older buildings as well as some 1960's built worker's accommodation. The modern buildings were razed and the former courtyard re-created. A new conference hall has been built to one side, complete with vaulted dining hall. There is also ancillary accommodation for the Princes Trust charity workers. The house will be rented out as holiday accommodation when the Prince is not in residence.

The royal couple were heavily involved in the restoration, being regularly consulted on all details. All the buildings have been renovated using traditional materials, sourced from Wales wherever possible. New oak and slate was installed, using some materials salvaged from the demolished buildings. Local craftsmen and contractors were used for the building and interiors. The rooms are decorated in a simple and tasteful manner. New iron window frames and door furniture accompany traditional Welsh furniture. Welsh textiles and artwork have been hung on lime washed walls. Even the curtains have been woven at the century-old Solva Mill, which also made the floor coverings. Welsh shirting flannel lines the curtains while early 20 C Welsh pottery is used.

Eleven antique Welsh quilts have been hung on the walls. These were purchased from Jen Jones who also supplied a number of Welsh blankets. Pictures of the house interior show a number of striking collectors quilts, mostly flannel and woolen quilts in bright and dark colours, hung from dowels.

Three quilts can be seen in the hall - one is a wool flannel quilt in grey, black and red squares; the second is a single "hired hand" quilt in sombre wool rectangles and the third is another wool flannel quilt with a chequerboard centre of red and balck squares with borders of grey, red and navy wool.

Quilts can be seen on some beds, but these are sturdy modern quilts.

Craig Hamilton, the architect stated that "the project was intended as a celebration of the Welsh vernacular. I think it has been very successfully accomplished. The whole makes for a very very peaceful location. Further information can be found in a recent book, A Royal House in Wales - Llwynywermod by Mark Baker.


The courtyard at Llwynywermod

The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall

Interior shot showing the use of traditional textiles and materials.

The new hall, which has several antique quilts hung on its walls.

White Weardale Quilt

Here is a really lovely quilt made of white or light cream cotton sateen - no provenance but it has an interesting story attached to it! It measures 98 x 80 inches, so is a large quilt. The patterns are really stunning on this one, and the quilting is nicely done with good depth.

Here is the centre medallion - a centre rose with circles of shells and running feathers. It is fairly typical of quilts made in this area.

Around the edges are running feather borders - compare these with the last quilt - the feathers are fairly straight on this one. And the quilter clearly didn't know how to turn a corner - she just ran the feathers right off the edge of the quilt!

Another photo of the medallion and the corner treatment.

The story goes - Christine (who I bought it from) lives in Whitley Bay and often goes to the Tynemouth market, where she bought the quilt from a furniture dealer. He had found it in a large linen chest bought locally - this quilt had been left in one of the drawers. Perhaps it was an unused gift - it looks unused. The quilt was actually being used to wrap around furniture in his van!! It's amazing that it survived in such good condition.

When Christine got the quilt, it was BROWN - only after two hand washes and a trip down to the laundromat did it emerge as a light cream colour.

The postscript is, I came home one day from work to find my son Tom vigorously washing this quilt in the bathtub with soap - he had washed his skiing gloves and set the wet gloves down on my stack of quilts - the black dye had seeped out of the gloves onto the top quilt, this one. Luckily the dye came out and the quilt was none the worse for its further washing. I did note that, when the quilt was wet,you could see that the cotton wadding does have bits of cotton seed in it ( I don't know if this signifies anything - perhaps that it is a bit older??).

This is the same lady that I got my Allendale quilt from - and the paisley panels - I have also just bought another £50 quilt from her, interested to see it when it arrives. I just wish that I lived near a north country market! Christine does say that the supply of quilts is rather erratic - sometimes nothing, then suddenly you find a couple. She usually washes and repairs them before selling them online. Thank goodness there are other people that are interested in old quilts.

By the way, Borderline Quilter has just posted a Durham quilt that lives on the back of her sofa - it is a good example of a Hawick quilt - see her post here: http://borderlinequilter.blogspot.com. The hearts with the thistles are very distinctive!!

I like this blog - the machine quilting is lovely and well done and the Borders scenery and horseriding is great to read about.

Cockfield Quilt - Running Feather

Here is a quilt that was rather difficult to photograph, as it is a white quilt. I bought this quilt three years ago from Sarah Truelock of Norton, Stockton-on-Tees. The quilt had belonged to her mother's family, and had been made in Cockfield, a village in Weardale. The quilt measures 79 x 94 inches so is a large quilt. The pattern is a running feather in a "bellows" (in and out) configuration. This pattern is common - it was striking, easy to mark and covered the fabric well without being too intricate. The templates showed the outline - the quilter just had to add the lines for the feathers -some quilters made the lines straight, but the better quilters drew more curving, naturalistic lines.

You can see that either end has a row of daisies - another well-liked pattern, it covered the fabric well. No attempt to turn a corner here!!

Another view of the running feather pattern - very attractive.

This quilt is unusual in that it has Pauline Adam's "edge"- ie the front and back were seamed together before being set on the frame. Here, it is well done and hardly noticeable, unless you look very carefully for the machined seaming stitches. The edge is machine top stitched.

This quilt was clearly made by a professional quilter, it is very nicely done without being complex, and the stitching is neat and regular. It could be a "club" quilt.

A view of the centre of the feather, with its double line for the feather vein.

And here is the running feather pattern in another quilt, the Rothbury quilt - I did not show this pattern very clearly in that post, so here is another photo. In this version, you can see that there is a "worm" or vein with a twist, in the centre of the feather. A popular pattern like this is bound to have several variations.

Bell blocks are arriving!

Very exciting to have the Bell blocks arriving! I am very pleased with the variety of fabrics and backgrounds, which was what I was hoping for. Many thanks for everyone's help and I am looking forward to receiving more.

Many thanks to Patricia Lloyd, Daphne Pratt, Shirley Blair, Lorraine Shergold,Ros Burton, and Marion Hamilton. I will soon be starting on the central panel, which will be interesting work. I am going to use Ruth McDowell's techniques of piecing from a paper pattern (which I will have to draft first). I gave a talk and show of quilts at Gislingham WI last night, and as usual, everyone liked my pieced flower and vegetable quilts, which use Ruth's patterns.

It is very warm and pleasant here in Suffolk, so we are looking forward to the Easter weekend. It is the AGM of the Suffolk Guild next weekend at Henley. Today's task to parcel up the new Allendale and red and white Hawaiian quilts to go to Malvern. I have never been - but it does have a very good hand quilted and wholecloth section, or so I'm told!

Giveaway Results

Here are the results of my little "giveaway". What I did was to assign everyone a number, and then use a random number generator - so they are random although they perhaps don't look that way! Welsh Quilt Book - Artymess. Detroit Times quilt clippings: Kathie of Vintage Fabrics, Heather, and Barbara. Korean silk fabric: Sew primitive, Lesley, Sharon (of Blaine Washington), Indigocarole, and Susan B. I will try to email you in the next day or so, but in the meantime if you see this, it would be nice if you emailed me with your address (my email icon is on my profile page). Many thanks to all those who participated and for your kind remarks!! I am going to show some more antique quilts soon - also the bell blocks have started to arrive! I am so excited about this and will show the ones I have over the next day or so. If you have made yours, please send it soon as I will be getting started on the quilt centre.

Finally, just to show you the progress on the centre of the sawtooth quilt. I find this the best part, as it is all ready and you can just quilt and do not have to fiddle about with marking or other preparation -bliss!

Trip to York

On Tuesday, I was up early to drive into Ipswich, park the car, dash across town and then catch the train to York - the purpose, a committee meeting of the British Quilt Study Group. The trains were all OK and by lunchtime I was walking across York towards the Quilt Museum that is also the headquarters of the Quilters Guild. York Minster is one of the most spectacular cathedrals in the UK, but no time to visit! I wanted to get some time to visit the Avril Colby exhibit!

Here's the old guild hall which is now home to the Quilt Museum - I just wish it was better signposted - I knew what I was looking for, and approximately where it was - but only one small sign ( its behind that red car) told me where to enter. I think they need a large banner to tell the tourists that it is there!!

The Colby exhibition was very interesting, and I was able to have a chat with Margaret Nichol, who is the outgoing Treasurer. We were both interested to have a close look at the Colby quilts - exquisite workmanship. Margaret was very amused to see that one small quilt was an assessment piece to allow Colby to participate in a WI needlework programme - hardly a practice piece and again with very fine work. The silk button hole stitching on the broderie perse quilt was especially fine and even, it was hard to believe that it was done by hand.

Then it was off to the Bar Convent for the committee meeting - this is an old convent which is now a museum, tearoom and hotel. Here is the chapel.

There was quite a lot to discuss - the Quilt Studies journal currently being printed, the newsletter -Culcita, the forthcoming seminar at Grenygog in Wales in late October, and the BQSG/Quilters Guild exhibition in 2012. I did not realise that there was so much planning involved in a quilt exhibition, or that the lead in time was so long!

Finally we checked into our rooms and went out for an evening meal. I really enjoyed meeting the other committee members - what a wealth of expertise and experience. The Minster bells were ringing for practice night, what a glorious sound. They are considered one of the best, if not the best, ring of bells in the UK - very rewarding to ring.

Then on Wednesday morning it was back to Ipswich. Here is another cathedral en route - Ely Cathedral, with its famous octagonal towers. No bells here - one of the few cathedrals with no ring of bells.

I have layered up the sawtooth diamond quilt - here it is in the frame. You can see that it is basted with safety pins and that I have started to quilt. I noticed that one small stretch of cloth escaped being marked - will have to trace onto tissue and then transfer the markings to the cloth.

I will hold the draw for the give away on Sunday night and will let you know the results later. Many thanks for all your support during the year.

First Anniversary Give Away

To celebrate one year of blogging about Welsh and Durham quilts - and what a learning curve it has been - I am having a little "give away" for fun. I have one copy of Mary and Clare's "Making Welsh Quilts" - not my signed copy, I'm afraid, just the paperback version---

Plus these duplicate copies of syndicated quilt patterns from 1933. These are from Detroit newspapers, before the Fuller family moved back to Oklahoma--The patterns are Josephs Coat of Many Colours, Lafayettes Orange Peel, and New York Beauty. They would look great in a suitable frame but would have to be kept out of the sunlight as they are so old and the newsprint is not very strong.

I also wanted to give away some vintage fabric - here is some Korean silk. My understanding is that it was part of the American redevelopment work after the Korean War, trying to get a textile industry rebuilt and going, especially silk making - these are salesman's samples and I think date from the 1960's. The silk is good to use in patchwork as long as you resist the temptation to pull at any loose threads!

There are some larger pieces as well. I will try to make up several bundles and give an assortment. The designs and colours are very 60's and do look rather Merimeko in an oriental sort of way, if that makes sense.

To enter, just leave a short comment and I'll put them all in a hat, which I will draw in about a week's time. I'll email the winners - I hope that not too many of you have "no reply" addresses! As I say, it is just for fun.....Pippa