Wednesday 23 October 2013

Liz Nally's Antique Quilts



This beautiful antique quilt is called a Sanderson Star, because it was designed by Elizabeth Sanderson, a quilt designer from the North East of England.

Yesterday I went to the Assembly Rooms in Swaffham with a couple of Stitch & Bitch friends, to listen to a talk by Liz Nally about her collection of antique quilts, from the North of England and from Wales, all made between the 1850's and the 1940's. I took over 200 photographs and held my breath when I thought I'd lost them AFTER DELETING FROM MY CAMERA as my lap-top complained about uploading them, and they got waylaid somewhere between 'photo stream' and 'events'! Phew. 


Liz gave us an excellent talk, and most exciting of all she had brought with her a large part of her collection. Beautiful, beautiful quilts, a few purchased from shops, but the majority from ebay! Yes, Liz took the plunge and has become the very Mistress of the Last Second Bid. I shall never bother attempting to buy a quilt this way as I know I will be outgunned by Liz or Pippa Moss, another English quilt collector. 


Liz does not claim to be an expert, but she does know a lot about antique quilts, believe me! You can contact her, as she runs workshops and gives talks, on thenallys@hotmail.com - should you wish to learn more. Now, there are so many photographs, I am just going to let you look at them and enjoy their faded splendour.








                         I thought myself, that these looked like reproduction feedsack fabrics.


       Below are a few other items Liz has been unable to resist whilst searching for quilts to purchase.






                                                               I WANT THIS BAG!!!!



           Now the following quilts came out of cotton bags, as there wasn't room to hang them all.







  This was one of my favourites. The border fabric was exquisite and the quilting so clear and intricate.




















Unlike American quilts of the same era, English quilts were unbound, and you can see how they have frayed at the edges here.






 This was a smaller Canadian Red Cross quilt, and judging from the audience response to it, it clearly struck a chord with many of us. A real mixture of fabrics has been used.





This quilt includes lots of Turkey Red fabric, which has rotted in parts. There are many holes and damaged patches, but it was another favourite with today's audience.





                This hexagon quilt has certainly seem better days, but lives to tell its own tale.






This reversible quilt is one of the earliest machine quilted pieces, very heavy, according to the two ladies who were doing a grand job of showing the collection!












 And back to the original blue and white Sanderson Star, such an incredibly wonderful quilt, feast your eyes on the quilting motif details. Excuse the odd blur here and there.









I hope you've enjoyed seeing this wonderful collection, and thanks to Liz for providing us with such a great spectacle. Though I've run through the spectrum of quilt making myself, hand and machine quilting, hand-dyeing, folk quilts, Art quilts, experimental textiles, I keep coming back to those gentle, hand stitched, largely utilitarian household objects which so capture our hearts and imaginations in this age of machine made, speedily constructed, quickly forgotten equivalents. I am also thrilled to be able to show the world that here in the UK we do still have an unbroken link to our textile roots; I hope these, and quilts from similar collections will remain here, on our own shores, for future generations to enjoy and appreciate.

18 comments:

  1. Where on earth does she store them all? Some wonderful quilts there. I think now, the more I look at them, that it is the intricate stitching that makes the quilt rather than just the pattern of the fabric used.

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  2. LIz keeps them wrapped in cotton bags - not on the beds! An awful lot of quilters never have their quilts around the house - such a shame. But these antique ones need looking after and perhaps wouldn't stand up to the hurly burly of everyday life.We quilters just LOVE the hand quilted effect.

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  3. I am so sad that I could not be there, but I did see the welsh museum in lampeter, I love that little town and visit every time I go to Wales.

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    1. Hi Pam, yes, it was a real treat. Now Lampeter was a good drive from where we stay in Wales, but I'm guessing you would be a bit closer?Lx

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  4. pillowcases are my storage favourite , and i still use a couple of early 20th century ones

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    1. I think if the quilt is in good nick then I would have it on show, if not actually IN USE if you see what I mean. I quite understand why you would keep the very delicate or damaged ones packed away. I have no antique/vintage quilts, only the ones I have made and a couple of purchased relatively modern ones. Thanks for posting, Kate.

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  5. Imagine : the thousands and thousands of hours of stitching ....

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    1. Indeed , Els, and when you think about the poor lighting, imagine the state of their eye-sight after completing a few of them! (And BTW your mandala post is waiting in the wings!) Lxx

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  6. I just hopped over from Ilonas, where I saw you had commented about your hexy quilt. As I am a great fan and have a made a new myself, I thought I'd come over and meet you properly!
    I love the quilt show. I was particularly interested, as I'm sure I have seen at least 2 of these quilts in an exhibition at the American museum in Bath.
    I'm off for a better look round now and hopefully find your hexie quilt!
    best wishes Kath

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    1. Dear Kath, thanks so much for popping by and leaving a comment. I've done similar and visited your super blog - lots to read, I will certainly be back, and I HOPE iI have 'followed' ok, sometimes the technology defeats me!! I would think there might very well be quilts with similar patterns at the American Museum, though I doubt (but will stand corrected) that it was the actual quilts as they are very particular that their quilts are 'Yankee" quilts - see my previous post about the Kentucky Quilts! My hexie quilt is .er....in pieces. Very small pieces. In fact it isn't a quilt. Yet. I'll keep you posted! Lx

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  7. Lynne - thanks so much for showing these and particularly the description/history note attached to each. It makes it so much more interesting to read about the background to each one. They are all quite exquisite. You did a good job getting all those photos and uploading them for us! xCathy

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    1. Hiya Cathy, they were beautiful. The photos aren't very sharp, some of them, as I was trying to take them while the ladies were shaking them about and trying to give everyone a view! Oh I want to talk to you about some BUTTONS! Lx

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  8. Lynne, thank you for these great photos of Liz's quilt collection. I have just met Liz via my blog and discovered that she is the quilter who made the wonderful Sanderson Star I so admired at this years FoQ. I enjoyed your post and will drop by again.

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    1. Hello Rose, thanks for your comment. These are wonderful quilts - but Liz is not parting with any of them yet so I shall have to be patient!

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  9. Hello Lynne, what a wonderful collection. A blog friend sent me the link to this post and it is lovely to read it. Thanks for taking the time to do this post.

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  10. Hello and thank you for posting - I did click back in order to find your blog so I could leave you a comment but I see you don't have one! Also, sorry that I cannot address you by name - but glad you enjoyed the post anyway.

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  11. Merci pour ce beau spectacle de quilts anciens !

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    1. Merci pour les bon mots, Mamifleur! Lxxx

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