Quilts

Patchwork quilt (one of a pair) made from hexagons in cottons, rayon, and taffeta, to fit a single bed. The quilt has a pleated ruffle or flounce of pale green fabric. Patchwork machine sewn onto backing, flounce sewn by machine.
"This is a pieced patchwork quilt comprised of 216 squares. Each square is comprised of 10 diagonal strips that have been joined by being attached to a backing. White cotton plain weave fabric has been used in all the pieces. The quilt is not lined, but the edge is decorated with a fine cotton frill, 15cm deep. The frill carries two 4mm tucks and is edged with 2 cm lace trim. All sewing on the quilt is by machine. The quilt is not padded." [NGA]
2420 x 1690mm
Embroiderers' Guild Victoria
Hand appliqued and quilted white cotton quilt with Hawaiian type design in pink. There is a scalloped border also in pink and the backing is fine pink cotton. The padding is 'Mountain Mist'.
2300 x 1600mm
Patchwork quilt in silks and cottons, handsewn from very small fabric pieces, has 2 pieced repeat pattern blocks. The quilt centre groups 9 blocks made of squares. Surrounding them are pieced blocks featuring a star. The strips in between all blocks are made from 2 rows of squares with a diamond pattern making a lattice effect. The first border has hexagons with appliqued and embroidered cats. The second border of cream cotton has harnessed horses embroidered and appliqued. Binding is of green cotton. No padding. Backed with red cotton paisley print. Signed and dated: 'Mrs E. Keen, Junction Hotel, Fyansford, 1879'.
2660 x 2330mm
Quilt top of patches of tailors' samples and men's suiting pieces in dark colours, mainly black and grey. Machine construction. It has a border of rose coloured velveteen and the backing is a single piece of cream patterned flannelette.
Patchwork rug made from tailors' samples, each sample 340 x 200mm. Each piece is edged in green wool blanket stitch, and then each piece is crocheted together using the same green wool. No padding or backing.
2130 x 1280mm
Silk patchwork quilt top. The all over pattern is of part octagons and black four pointed stars in the centre of small squares. When joined together, the effect is rows of octagons. All the seams are outlined with embroidery.
1600 x 1430mm
Log cabin quilt with 90mm squares in cotton materials, white (or cream), faded blacks, dark blues, reds and browns. All the strips are very narrow. No actual padding as such but the quilt is fairly thick because with such narrow strips, there is so much seam allownace. The backing is a light calico.
1715 x 1575mm
Patchwork quilt made from squares in cotton fabrics, each piece 120mm square. Filling is a cotton blanket (army style), and the backing is a brushed cotton ticking with a wide green stripe and white, yellow and maroon stripes. Patches are decorated with white cotton herringbone stitch.
1750 x 1000mm
Patchwork quilt consisting of 40 squares, with 8 rectangles along one side. Each square is covered with a random number of diagonal strips sewn one over the other onto a backing. Number of strips varies from 15 to 19. Variety of coloured materials, plain and patterned. Strips are hand sewn on to mainly white backing. Top edge is bound with self patterned pink satin, added at a later date by machine.
2090 x 1400mm
This padding originally had a cretonne cover. "The filling was made from a variety of old woollen clothing and worn and patched woollen banket scraps, handstitched together with large running stitches. The pieces of clothing include heavily darned machine and hand knitted socks, a knitted wool bed jacket, part of a baby's machine knitted blue jumper, hand knitted baby's leggings, a number of darned singlets and underpants, a darned knitted pink bootee and other assorted knitted woollen garments and pieces of flannel. Cotton name tags on some of the garments are printed with the name C.S.Yates, the maker's maiden name.
The upper side is covered with an old and torn woollen blanket with many holes and the reverse with cream cotton. The whole is partly machine stitched around the edge and across the filling, and originally had a cretonne cover." [PHM]
Crazy quilt with one large panel. Materials include wools, velvets, silks and crepes. Each piece embroidered in herrigbone stitch to the adjoining piece. 25mm blue border chain stitched on, then 75mm border of black wool crepe with a crocheted edge. The padding is an old blanket and the backing is red/brown printed cotton.
1730 x 1040mm
Wagga, made from 2 jute bags split and hand-bound along the seams.
1870 x 1130mm
This traditional Greek quilt has one side of deep pink satin and the other side of gold satin. It is machine quilted with a centre diamond in which are large butterfly patterns set within curvilinear and crescent shapes. The borderis 3 parallel lines. The padding is cotton wadding.
1940 x 1660mm
Quilt of cotton hexagons, 6 form the petals of a flower with 1 in the centre. There are approximately 138 flowers in the quilt. It is all hand stitched including the edges on to deep blue backing. Wide variety of materials patterned and plain. Some were dress samples from John Wild in Wagga and some from her mother's (Betty Johnson, Wagga Wagga) dressmaking. The hexagons were stitched on papers cut from a glass template made by Celia's brother.
2370 x 2690mm
Jenny Loder and Rosemary Hart
Log cabin quilt with logs made from silks (including moire), velvets, brocades and tartan ribbons. Each square is separately backed. There is no padding.
2020 x 1460mm
National Trust of Australia (SA)
Patchwork quilt of hexagons in silks and velvet, the velvet in plain colours, the silk in plains, stripes, checks and brocades. Centre is made from red brocade hexagons with black silk patches embroided with a variety of flowers and leaves. Stitched to a red velvet border, then top and bottom have Australian motif of crossed wattle branches embroidered in bobble stitch, and on the sides embroidered red flowers. The rest of the quilt is made of hexagons, the edge stitched to a brown silk border, then a border of triangles and a striped edging. Surface embroidery. Crepe backing. Some newspaper templates remain.
2260 x 1720mm
"Welsh wholecloth quilt - red on top and cream on back. Combination of traditional Welsh patterns including circles and diamonds. Quite large quilting stitches (due to thickness of quilt I think). Top (red cotton) just about worn away, and was cut in half by my grandfather in the 1950s to make it fit 2 single beds." [Anita Phillips]
The padding includes pieces of wool suiting, jumpers and a piece of mohair and the backing is cream cotton.
Each piece measures approx. 2000mm x 1000mm.
Travelling rug. Wool, cotton and velvet. Handsewn, partly filled with wool blanket and hessian. The top of this rug was originally a green crushed velvet overcoat. Various parts of the garment have been unstitched and spread out to form a flat surface.
2100 x 1050mm

Pages