Welsh Quilt with Yellow and Striped Fabrics

Here is a Welsh quilt with yellow fabric on the top and a striped fabric on the reverse. This quilt measures 68 x 92 inches and is therefor a rectangular and not square quilt. The quilter thus had some modifications to make to the quilting design to ensure that it was longer in one direction than the other.

The wholecloth side is a pale lemon colour. The centre has hearts and a flower while the sideborders have leaves and a corner device. There is a diamond infill around the outside.

Along the longer side is this pair of leaves with a heart in the centre. Hearts were a popular motif but the story goes that they were used on wedding quilts. It is hard to tell if this was so, now.

Notice how the quilter has place extra hearts on two sides to make the design longer.

And the shorter side has just a single leaf! You can see the corner device which is a branch with six spirals. Very attractive and lively.

The central area with its flower and four hearts, with infill cross hatching to complete. All the motifs are double outlined, giving a single raised band - a characteristic of Welsh quilts.

The reverse of the quilt in a striped fabric. Can you see that the maker has run out of fabric and pieced the last strip, and not been able to match up the stripes? Welsh quilters were very frugal - this quilter had no more fabric to use.

The whole of the reverse.

Lovely leaves and spirals seen on the reverse of the quilt. Nicely stitched, probably made by a professional quilter. quite a heavy quilt, with a carded wool filling.

The edge of the quilt - a hand sewn edge as is usual with Welsh quilts.

No provenance on this quilt - it was bought for £6o at the Newark textiles fair - failed to sell in a shop for £125 - I bought it for £25 on Ebay. I guess no one liked the muted colours. Once again it was sold as a Durham quilt, but I think everyone can see that this is a Welsh, not a Durham, quilt.