Welsh Quilting
by Patricia Lynne Grace Cummings
Welsh Quilts have come to the forefront of our awareness lately due to the work of two women, Jen Jones and Marjorie Horton.
Jen, who now lives in Wales, has been an avid collector of Welsh quilts for years. Her website: http://www.jen-jones.com/ states that she has the largest collection of antique Welsh quilts for sale, in the world. Her book, Welsh Quilts, which I have had for some time now, luckily is still available. Jen was co-curator of a recent exhibit of Welsh Quilts at the New England Quilt Museum, and she also gives lectures.
Marjorie Horton of Rainier, Washington, is also heavily involved in designing Welsh quilts. Her passion is for this type of whole cloth quilt design. This past year, Marjorie’s work was featured in an article in American Patchwork and Quilting magazine. She has appeared on “Simply Quilts,” and is currently selling patterns.
I have purchased several of her patterns. One was sent to a friend who enjoyed making a Welsh style tea cozy. Just this week, I have finished a hand-quilted table runner using the other pattern. For the table runner, I chose a Christmas red, cotton sateen fabric and a maroon color Mettler brand quilting thread to work the designs. The sateen was very easy to use for tracing the designs. I just placed the pattern underneath the cloth on a table and traced them with a water-erasable fine point blue marking pen, and did not even have to use a light box. When finished, I simply used Q-tip swabs to remove the markings.
Even though there are a lot of stops and starts to Welsh quilting and a lot of twists and turns for those spiral designs, I found myself enjoying every minute of the process.
The above picture is a close up of the back of the table runner showing the
quilting stitches.
Click on the pictures to see a larger view.
To see some terrific quilts made in this traditional manner, please see this website and click on "Gallery": www.britishheritagequilting.com
Most especially, I loved Marjorie’s directions for finishing the project by turning in top and bottom edges. I have never seen that technique described elsewhere in print. To purchase this pattern and others, see: http://www.thecalicocat.com/welsh.htm
Marjorie’s book, Welsh Quilting Pattern and Design Book can be purchased at http://columbiariverquilting.com/marjorie_horton_welsh_quilting_pattern_design_book.html This will be an invaluable aid, should you wish to design your own Welsh style quilt.
The history of quilting in Wales is very rich, indeed. The little I know about it just leaves me hankering to find out more. The idea of itinerant quilters journeying from house to house to stay for a fortnight or so to make new quilts for a family, is a romantic tale. If you like to hand quilt, Marjorie’s book and patterns will be a joy to own.
In addition, you may like to look at this book: