Wednesday 2 October 2013

Welsh Wholecloth Quilts - Welsh Quilt Centre Exhibition, Lampeter 2013

Cwrtnewydd Fans Art Deco Wholecloth Quilt, c 1930
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 ad Red Wholecloth Quilt, early 20th Century,
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,
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
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
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!

6 comments:

  1. After my visit to the Philadelphia Extravaganza recently I was inspired to make a sleeping bag....
    Though I am not sure if I would want to spend hours making a quilt for my best cow.... or maybe I would?

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  2. What beautiful quilting! I've made quilts for dogs before, but never a cow. LOL

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  3. Exquisite quilts, thanks for sharing your pics.

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  4. Beautiful quilts - and amazing to see that wadding. We are very spoilt with our modern choices available - must have been fairly greasy and maybe a bit smelly in the old days! But they would have been warm wouldn't they? What a great photo with the cow snuggled in the quilt.
    Hilda

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  5. Thank you for sharing these beautiful hand quilted Welsh quilts, I love seeing the different patterns and hearing of the meaning behind them. Great pic of the cow!

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  6. Those are such beautiful quilts, it is amazing the texture and patterns formed from the quilting.

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