Historic quilts

[watervole]

I don't know if any of you are into quilting. I don't do it myself, but my sister, Carolyn,  is an expert quilter.

Even as I collect old dances as well as writing new ones, she collects old quilts as well as making new ones.

She has several interesting ones in her collection, showing a wide range of techniques, and they demonstrate traditional patterns and techniques from different regions.

I've been reading her website the last couple of days, and I've found the descriptions and photos of these historical quilts to be really interesting.

Here's one example. This is a Welsh wholecloth quilt, probably made in the 1930s.




Fascinating design, and worked with a lot of skill.

Comments

[feng_shui_house]

ooh, yes. I've made quilts, and can really appreciate this. I never made one anywhere near as labor intensive. This one is definitely museum quality, a true masterpiece.

[ranunculus]

I wonder how many hundreds of hours went into it.

[feng_shui_house]

It's hard to say- I made a king size pieced quilt with probably half as much quilting (not as intricate, but I think about as many stitches per inch- I didn't realize they counted the TOP stitch and the BOTTOM stitch, so in trying for an 'average' 6 stitches per inch I wound up closer to 12, which is supposedly professional) and it took me a year.

But I didn't work on it all the time. :^)

[watervole]

If you're at all interested in the mathematics of quilting or on how to get really precise corners, then some of Carolyn's techniques may be of interest to you. She's put a lot of thought into some of her own designs.

[feng_shui_house]

I read most of her site last night. :^) Lovely site, and gorgeous photos of amazing quilts.