Rothbury Brown Durham Quilt

Here ia a magnificent Durham quilt in a golden brown colour. It is a very large quilt - the size is 105 x 88 inches. The wadding is cotton and the quilt appears either very lightly used or unused. The quilt came from an auction house in Rothbury which deals in house clearances so is likely to be from Northumberland.

The centre of the quilt has a magnificent circle of curved feathers with a rose at the centre. The quilt is wide and is made of three fabric panels; one is reversed in the direction of grain so appears a slightly different colour but is in fact the same fabric.

On the outside are daisies plus more feathers - this group of three feathers is known as Prince of Wales feathers.

On two sides of the quilt is a running feather border....

On the other two ends is this unusual border - a looped pattern filled with leaves...

The edge is machine sewn in two places but has a unusual wavy line - very attractive. I did not photograph it, but in one small area the quilting was not completed - so the person at the sewing machine has filled the unquilted area in with circles of machine sewing - all in white - very strange as it is very visible against the brown fabric and the lovely hand quilting - perhaps they were more proud of their sewing machines then...

Northumberland Stamped Quilt Top

Here is my most recent purchase - a marked quilt top from Northumberland. It looks fairly old and is a bit grubby but cannot be washed due to the quilt markings. It was sold as an unfinished project, but I won't quilt it, but just keep it as it is. It is a large top, 91 x 96 inches. It is interesting to see how it has been marked and also, how it has been constructed. The overall pattern is a toothed central diamond with borders,again sawtoothed.

The top is all machine pieced, and you can see that the sewing machine had tension problems in the bobbin! The fabrics are a natural white cotton twill and a pink fabric. You can see here that although the fabric reads as pink, it is actually woven white and red threads.

In places, the sewer did not unpick the poor tension but just oversewed the seam line. I wonder how sturdy this top would have been in use! So often, the patchwork on these quilts is very slapdash.....the tips are often cut off on the half triangles but still, the overall effect is good...

It doesn't come out very well in this photo, but if you look carefully you can see a woven plait carefully marked in blue pencil. This is from the border, there is a lot of cross hatching in various areas.

In the outer white border, a four petalled flower pattern has been marked.

And here, in the innerwhite border, a curlicue floral design has been marked. I dont have any details about provenance, apart from the fact that the seller was a Miss Baxter and the top came from Northumberland. A big project for a quilter - perhaps that was why it was never completed.