Yellow Weardale Quilt

Here is a yellow Weardale quilt which I bought as it was similar to one of my other quilts shown in an earlier post (thanks to Liz N for pointing it out to me).See my post of April 27th 2011 "White Weardale Quilt" to compare. The quilting designs are similar but not exactly the same on the two quilts.

In the centre of the quilt is a round medallion with a central star surrounded by twists and semicircular motifs. The whole surrounded by a feather wreath. This is very similar to the white quilt.

Another photo of the centre of the quilt. The stitching is neat and the crosshatching very well done. The top is a golden yellow cotton sateen.

The borders are running feathers in bellows pattern with stars in a circle and daisies.

On this quilt, the edges on two ends are neatly turned under, presumably as they were becoming worn.

Here the yellow quilt is compared with the white quilt - you can see that the borders are similar but not the same. In the white quilt the feathers are much wider and also larger in size.

The white quilt had had a hard life (being used to wrap furniture in a moving van) yet because it had been little used and perhaps because the fabric was of a better quality, it is still in very good condition. In the yellow quilt, the fabric is worn and the edges frayed a bit. This is especially evident on the back of the quilt. Colourful printed fabric has now faded badly, and the back shows a lot of wear. Surely a lesser quality or cheaper fabric was used on the back and has not stood the test of time very well.

The fabric is very rubbed - unlike the front which is generally in good condition. I wish we could still buy the old fashioned cotton sateen! Unfortunately it was discontinued with the advent of WWII as it was very labour intensive to make.

This yellow Weardale is a large quilt - it is 80 x 92 inches in size. The age is about 1900. Wadding is a medium weight cotton. This was a family quilt and came from the Rowlands Gill area of Durham. This is a village between Consett and Newcastle on the River Derwent.

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.