Patchwork and Quilting afternoon.
I said I would write more about the talk and workshop last Saturday.
The afternoon was led by Yvonne Cresswell who recently retired from Manx National Heritage where she was the Social History and Art Curator for some years.
She began by talking about the quilt collection. It is an unusual collection due to the way it was collected. As I have mentioned before the Manx Museum (the starting point of MNH) was set up in the late nineteenth century to preserve local history. And they asked for people to bring them any, and all, old things. So the quilts are not perfect examples specially made, or ones bought in auctions, but every quilt comes with a full background of who made it and the family history.
There are a few other museums, mainly folk museums, with the same sort of collection but Yvonne said that, when talking to the relevant curator at the V&A, he was actually quite jealous of that background knowledge, and of some of the very 'not pretty' quilts that simply do not turn up in the big auction houses - they were thrown out by the families years ago!
I am going to put in a cut for those who are really not all that interested in the history of local patchwork quilts. Although there is also a picture of my effort under there as well;
So - the most basic ones are strippy quilts - simply long strips of fabric stitched together and then only a backing, finished with a simple over quilting in squares. The fabrics are usually old clothes, the backing old blankets. Where there isn't a long enough strip then two pieces are stitched together - just very, very, basic re-use of old fabric. The V&A curator was actually quite envious of these - you can see strips of very of different fabrics, backed in some cases with four or five different bits of blanket, using the least worn bits - very much the bedding of the farm labourer.
Next there are quilts where the patchwork is in squares rather than strips and many of them will show the fabrics of much of the family wardrobe; pieces of tweed from an old jacket, red flannelette from a woman's petticoat, serge trousers, a bit of linsey woolsey from a woman's boddice, and linen from a summer skirt. Again all stitched onto an old sheet, then backed with bits of old blanket, or even a layer of new squares put onto an older quilt. And for each one there is a family history.
Then there are examples of 'crazy patchwork', where random shapes are stitched onto a piece, or larger pieces, of fabric with feather stitch; these would sometimes include the scraps from making a new garment, and even small corners left from cutting the long strips from dresses for the plain strippy quilts. Again this was quilted onto an older quilt or a blanket with a simple zig-zag pattern of stitching or a series of squares.
Next she showed us some of the quilts where the squares and triangles of fabric are chosen to form a pattern - this being more akin to the modern hobby quilting. These could be found on the beds of even the well-off families - nobody threw out fabric that could be repurposed. And the introduction of the colour-fast turkey red dye, used in the women's red petticoats, meant that particular bright colour could be used to highlight much paler fabrics.
Finally there is the form of quilting that made use of small pieces of fabrics such as cottons or, if you were better off, even silks.
There is a very traditional, Manx, way which produces something that looks like the 'log cabin' squares associated with, in particular, Amish quilts in the USA. At this point Yvonne explained that there was no similar tradition in the European countries many of the Amish emigrated from, and their own verbal history says they learnt a good deal about making quilts from scrap fabrics from 'The English' who lived around them.
But to many Amish communities this term meant anyone from Britain, and even further afield. And the majority of the thousands who left the Isle of Man for America settled in Ohio... So it is very likely that 'The English' many of the Amish met were actually The Manx.
The relevance of this can be seen when you look at the scrap quilts that have been made here using the same technique for hundreds of years. Fabric was cut or ripped into small strips, using the hand as a measuring tool, and then sewn directly onto the backing fabric using a running stitch and a pleating technique to make the blocks from which bedding or cushion covers were then built. There is an excellent 'how-to' video here.
The starting 'hearth' square in the middle of the block was usually red. Then there was a pale side and a dark side. and you then sewed blocks together - no need to add another backing unless it was to be a heavy winter blanket, as the pleating gives a double layer over much of each square and the backing fabric is already there as an integral part of making the block.
We tend these days to colour match, and make each block look very similar to the others - but patchworked quilts from back in the eighteenth and nineteen centuries were a lot more random; most households kept a couple of bags of strips - one of pale scraps and one of dark. The woman would sew by firelight simply taking the next strip and adding it, each one anchoring the previous one and the folding meaning there were no hems to make or raw edges to neaten.
When we went on to actually sew it took me a while to get my head around this, even though it is really straightforward - but it did eventually click and so here is my 'practice square. My fabric strips were probably a bit too wide - and my hearth square is actually lego patterned so has yellow as well as red!
And the back showing the simple running stitch that holds it all together.
As I know almost nothing about patchwork quilts (apart from strippy ones - my granny had those on the beds, backed with old flour sacks), I have no idea whether other people use the same 'pleating' method, but I get the impression that it really is a Manx way and others use different techniques. Perhaps someone here can correct me if this is wrong.
Oh - and finally, I have known Yvonne, one way or another, for quite a while. And I wish I could find a good photo of her online because she really does look very like Mary Beard. She is regularly asked for her autograph, especially because she can often be seen in the sort of places you might expect to see Mary Beard! This one on the MNH Facebook page was the only one I could find and it is not exactly a close-up, in reality the similarity is even more obvious.
The afternoon was led by Yvonne Cresswell who recently retired from Manx National Heritage where she was the Social History and Art Curator for some years.
She began by talking about the quilt collection. It is an unusual collection due to the way it was collected. As I have mentioned before the Manx Museum (the starting point of MNH) was set up in the late nineteenth century to preserve local history. And they asked for people to bring them any, and all, old things. So the quilts are not perfect examples specially made, or ones bought in auctions, but every quilt comes with a full background of who made it and the family history.
There are a few other museums, mainly folk museums, with the same sort of collection but Yvonne said that, when talking to the relevant curator at the V&A, he was actually quite jealous of that background knowledge, and of some of the very 'not pretty' quilts that simply do not turn up in the big auction houses - they were thrown out by the families years ago!
I am going to put in a cut for those who are really not all that interested in the history of local patchwork quilts. Although there is also a picture of my effort under there as well;
So - the most basic ones are strippy quilts - simply long strips of fabric stitched together and then only a backing, finished with a simple over quilting in squares. The fabrics are usually old clothes, the backing old blankets. Where there isn't a long enough strip then two pieces are stitched together - just very, very, basic re-use of old fabric. The V&A curator was actually quite envious of these - you can see strips of very of different fabrics, backed in some cases with four or five different bits of blanket, using the least worn bits - very much the bedding of the farm labourer.
Next there are quilts where the patchwork is in squares rather than strips and many of them will show the fabrics of much of the family wardrobe; pieces of tweed from an old jacket, red flannelette from a woman's petticoat, serge trousers, a bit of linsey woolsey from a woman's boddice, and linen from a summer skirt. Again all stitched onto an old sheet, then backed with bits of old blanket, or even a layer of new squares put onto an older quilt. And for each one there is a family history.
Then there are examples of 'crazy patchwork', where random shapes are stitched onto a piece, or larger pieces, of fabric with feather stitch; these would sometimes include the scraps from making a new garment, and even small corners left from cutting the long strips from dresses for the plain strippy quilts. Again this was quilted onto an older quilt or a blanket with a simple zig-zag pattern of stitching or a series of squares.
Next she showed us some of the quilts where the squares and triangles of fabric are chosen to form a pattern - this being more akin to the modern hobby quilting. These could be found on the beds of even the well-off families - nobody threw out fabric that could be repurposed. And the introduction of the colour-fast turkey red dye, used in the women's red petticoats, meant that particular bright colour could be used to highlight much paler fabrics.
Finally there is the form of quilting that made use of small pieces of fabrics such as cottons or, if you were better off, even silks.
There is a very traditional, Manx, way which produces something that looks like the 'log cabin' squares associated with, in particular, Amish quilts in the USA. At this point Yvonne explained that there was no similar tradition in the European countries many of the Amish emigrated from, and their own verbal history says they learnt a good deal about making quilts from scrap fabrics from 'The English' who lived around them.
But to many Amish communities this term meant anyone from Britain, and even further afield. And the majority of the thousands who left the Isle of Man for America settled in Ohio... So it is very likely that 'The English' many of the Amish met were actually The Manx.
The relevance of this can be seen when you look at the scrap quilts that have been made here using the same technique for hundreds of years. Fabric was cut or ripped into small strips, using the hand as a measuring tool, and then sewn directly onto the backing fabric using a running stitch and a pleating technique to make the blocks from which bedding or cushion covers were then built. There is an excellent 'how-to' video here.
The starting 'hearth' square in the middle of the block was usually red. Then there was a pale side and a dark side. and you then sewed blocks together - no need to add another backing unless it was to be a heavy winter blanket, as the pleating gives a double layer over much of each square and the backing fabric is already there as an integral part of making the block.
We tend these days to colour match, and make each block look very similar to the others - but patchworked quilts from back in the eighteenth and nineteen centuries were a lot more random; most households kept a couple of bags of strips - one of pale scraps and one of dark. The woman would sew by firelight simply taking the next strip and adding it, each one anchoring the previous one and the folding meaning there were no hems to make or raw edges to neaten.
When we went on to actually sew it took me a while to get my head around this, even though it is really straightforward - but it did eventually click and so here is my 'practice square. My fabric strips were probably a bit too wide - and my hearth square is actually lego patterned so has yellow as well as red!
And the back showing the simple running stitch that holds it all together.
As I know almost nothing about patchwork quilts (apart from strippy ones - my granny had those on the beds, backed with old flour sacks), I have no idea whether other people use the same 'pleating' method, but I get the impression that it really is a Manx way and others use different techniques. Perhaps someone here can correct me if this is wrong.
Oh - and finally, I have known Yvonne, one way or another, for quite a while. And I wish I could find a good photo of her online because she really does look very like Mary Beard. She is regularly asked for her autograph, especially because she can often be seen in the sort of places you might expect to see Mary Beard! This one on the MNH Facebook page was the only one I could find and it is not exactly a close-up, in reality the similarity is even more obvious.