Old Quilts and their Stories

The Quilters Guild had an Area Day in Swaffham Prior and Pat Lowe came from the Traditional group to share her passion for old quilts.

 This is probably a North Country quilt as the quilting travels across in lines. Difficult to photograph, the stitching made beautiful patterns across the surface, with large roundels and cross-hatching. It's an English quilt as the edges are turned in towards each other and stitched together with the quilting stitch.

 This is the back of the pink floral quilt below which Pat and a friend bought for £35 between them, the other share of which was then given to Pat as a hostess gift! The edge on the right has been bound much later to cover up wear, but is all part of the quilt's history. It was bought in Yorkshire, and at an exhibition there some time later, Pat and her friend saw its twin, unfortunately complete with rust marks from having been placed on top of the bed-springs to prevent wear on the mattress! The owner did not want to sell, and Pat did not want to part with hers, so they remain parted.

Pat showing the edge bound with more recent fabric.

"Bought on the knock" quilt

This is a Welsh quilt and belonged to a friend. Pat took it to a Guild day to try to find out more about it and discovered how much it was worth. Her friend was willing to sell but Pat had little cash so she paid for it over time. When she got it half paid she was allowed to take it home but continued to pay off small amounts till it was fully hers!
The fabric on the front of the quilt is red and is the same design in a different colourway to the reverse. The quilting is clearly Welsh in design and has a large leaf pattern repeated 4 times and beautiful double cross hatching across the centre.
Afterwards we were treated to the Traditional group Suitcase collection of small quilts on the theme of "Building Blocks" which provoked a lively discussion on what makes a traditional quilt as a few of them seemed quite contemporary to some of us.
My favourite was a clever little quilt of nine blocks where the central blocks were made from the two blocks on either side combined. A great idea and very well executed.
It's a good idea to get together with other groups in the area and hire the suitcase for a quilt group session as this spreads the cost.