Welsh Wholecloth Quilts - Welsh Quilt Centre Exhibition, Lampeter 2013

Cwrtnewydd Fans Art Deco Wholecloth Quilt, c 1930
Welsh Quilt Centre, Lampeter, Wales

Alongside all those colourful Kaffe Fassett quilts hanging from the ceiling which I showed in my last post, were a lovely selection of traditional hand made wholecloth Welsh quilts, from the Jen Jones Collection, which makes up the majority of the Welsh Quilt Centre permanent exhibits.  It was hard to resist getting onto the bed and having a snooze with all those pink hand quilted quilts!

Green and Red Wholecloth Quilt, early 20th Century,
Welsh Quilt Centre, Lampeter

As I hope you can see, these quilts are ALL about hand quilting, and traditional wholecloth Welsh quilting patterns.  The majority of those on show were a cotton sateen, usually with a floral patterned fabric on the reverse.  The sheen on the sateen really shows off the quilting patterns well.

Detail - Green ad Red Wholecloth Quilt, possible Wedding Quilt, 
Welsh Quilt Centre, Lampeter

The detail on this Green quilt shows a heart pattern at the centre, surrounded by spirals which represent long life or eternity, most probably a wedding quilt.  What a wonderful gift to receive!

Detail - 'Jester Quilt', c 1920, Carmarthenshire 

This Jester Quilt really shows the quilting well, and even with my 2D photo on the internet, you get quite a good impression of the depth of the wadding. Alongside the completed quilts, there were samples on show the inside of these traditional quilts.  As you can see, the 'wadding' is sheep's wool.  In this sample it doesn't even look as if it was prepared in any way, and possible even just collected from the hedges in the fields.  As a result, the quilts have a lovely cosy depth to them. 

Sheep's Wool wadding in traditional Welsh Wholecloth Quilt

On the day we visited, Sandie Lush running a hand quilting workshop.  Sandie is a very good tutor if you want to learn about welsh quilt patterns and hand quilting, so if you get the chance to go on one of her workshops you will learn so much.

Cow keeping warm under Strippy Welsh Quilt

Finally, I picked up this card in the shop, showing a favourite cow wrapped up in a hand made quilt, on a Welsh farm.  It really emphasises the practical purpose of a quilt - to keep warm!