This year I am celebrating quilts with circles by design. Circles represent unity, wholeness, a sense of completion, and the cycle of time. Even though quilts with circle designs can often be very energetic, drawing you in to the design, I find they can also provide a sense of peace visually. I hope you enjoy this year’s selection. Y’all know I sooooo believe that we have so much to learn from antique quilts!
As I was choosing the quilts for this year’s line-up of the Twelve Quilts of Christmas, I remembered back to when I was studying fashion design. On the first day in one of my classes, the professor began the class by asking the class if there is really anything new to create in design. It was a provocative question that has stayed with me all these years. Of course, at the time, something in me wanted to say, “yes, of course there are new things!” And yet at the same time I couldn’t totally agree because I could see trends and how fashion had been influenced by many things that had gone before. That professor’s question prompted me to consider what made something truly different and ground breaking; where was the line that distinguished a design as new. Their question has stayed with me, and challenges me, to this day, causing me to continually examine my own work and process. It is a great question to keep in mind as you look at the quilts this year and contemplate how you will take what you learn from these quilts and bring those yummy design lessons forward into your work.
Fan Quilt, American, c. 1900, 76 ½” x 75 3/4’”, Maker unknown. From the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Mrs. Roger Brunschwig Gift, 1988. Accession Number: 1988.24.1
This quilt just vibrates with joy and is such a wonderful way to start out this year’s Twelve Quilts of Christmas. I love a good two colour quilt.
Notice how the “stems” at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock lead the eye back to centre They also point to the thicker “fans” that are created where the blocks are joined … what an interesting secondary design. The stems also work in tandem with the thicker red border to contain all the energy this quilt exudes!
This quilt definitely livens up the season!
I am so glad you are here. Thank you so much for stopping by and remember to Quilt with Abandon!
Central Star Quilt, Llanrhystud, Cardiganshire, Wales, c. 1870, 71” x 75”, Maker unknown. From the collection of Jen Jones. Collection no. cq061
Merry Christmas!
Exhibition Notes: “Having bought several pretty floral quilts from two elderly widowed sisters, Jen mentioned over Welsh cakes and tea how sad it was that so few of the wonderful flannel quilts of Wales still existed. A great deal of whispering and giggling ensued as she was ushered into the sisters’ bedroom. Confronted by a large double bed, they asked for her assistance to lift the huge mattress against the wall. This amazing work of art was revealed. Its job had been to protect the mattress from the box springs for over 25 years.”
To see this quilt in person is to understand completely it’s glow, the centre star shining even brighter than the rest.
I will leave you to dive into your own discovery of this quilt as I wish you and your family a wonderful and safe and healthy holiday season.
Thank you so much for joining me again this year. I can’t believe it’s my tenth Twelve Quilts of Christmas!
This early example of a Welsh quilt is a wonderfully graphic and balanced pieced composition that skillfully uses value to great effect. The plain backing allows us to appreciate the many motifs and the layout of the quilting design that remained so common in Welsh quilts. There are a number of quilts from this period that have flowering pots as the central motif, likely an indication of the house and level of society the quilts came from. Pre-1850 Welsh quilts were mostly cotton patchwork or silk quilts and mostly in the larger homes and not in farm or village houses, where homespun blankets would have been used.
By the early 19th century, distinctive welsh quilting motifs had evolved. The museum listing notes the following motifs used in this quilt: “central motif of large flowering pot plant, decorated with leaves, spirals, tulips, flowers and hearts, on a rectangular trellis ground with a flowering plant in each corner. Wide inner border of triangles filled with alternating hearts and spiral and flower motifs, with trellis in corner squares. Outer border of large veined leaves, filled with tulips, petalled flowers and spirals, and corner squares filled with petalled flowers and spirals.”
It’s the tiny pots in each of the corners of the central medallion that are just so adorable. And the addition of delightful little dots as fill. And what about those border tulips with spiral adornments!
I love the proportions of this strippy quilt that is made from blue and gold wool and stitched with red thread! The quilting pattern, unlike strippy quilts we might see here in North America, or the ones in the North Country in England, defies the strips and addresses the whole quilt instead as one would expect with a Welsh quilt.
This classic quilting layout uses wheels, fans, spiral and a motif called “church windows” which you can find in the outer border. Echo quilting skillfully fills the outer portion of the design and the inner fill of spirals in groups of three adds a delightful bit of energy. I love the use of interlocking circles in the middle border that forms a leaf design where the two circles intersect. It gives the look of leaves on point.
From the exhibition notes: “Jen has always call this her “zany” quilt. The patchwork is irregular and lopsided which manages somehow to add to its charm. In today’s terminology it would be called “Folk Art”. Twenty-five years ago, when her younger daughter Kate was born Jen paid her gynaecologist in quilts! He especially wanted this yellow and blue star which she was loath to part with. Luckily in the end a substitute was agreed upon. Happily, it remained in the collection eventually to be selected as the standard bearer for the 2011 exhbition.”
Oh, this one is most certainly freewheeling! Check out how each of the quilting designs are resolved in the corners of the outside border. Do you notice how the leaves look without the defining double row of stitching around the outside of them? And that outside border with the break of triangles … divine! What else do you see?
A quiltmaker, fabric designer, teacher, and speaker, Mary Elizabeth is also co-author of two best-selling books, “Small Blocks, Stunning Quilts” and “Small Pieces, Spectacular Quilts“. She has been a featured guest on The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims. And her work has been shown at international quilt shows and featured in many international quilting publications.
Mary Elizabeth believes in “Quilting With Abandon”, stretching traditional boundaries and creating quilts with a subtle salute to the past. She is enthusiastic about our quilting heritage and the lessons to be learned from the antique quilts she studies and collects. Her recent work examines the interpretation of traditional quilt designs through “gestured appliquéd lines” and the quilting stitch.
