Quilt No.450PS - Pat Stevenson
1803 x 1398mm
This quilt was made by Elsa Beavis in Melbourne for Pat Stevenson in 1958/59. It is still owned by Pat Stevenson and is still used.
" Elsa Beavis was the needlework teacher in charge of the subject at Flemington Girls School in 1958 when I started teaching there in 1958. Elsa had made a similar quilt for another staff member and when requested agreed to make one for me.
I was to provide the materials. So I gathered fabrics left from my dressmaking, my students dressmaking, and pieces collected from my working time in the dress trade 1954 and 1955 at a sportswear and casual clothing factory. My mother provided the 2 old worn sheets that form the backing to the patchwork.
Elsa Beavis was a lady who did all types of needlework. I had done much embroidery but never met cross stitch and traditional forms of counted thread work, to which she introduced me.
Of a Norwegian extraction, she made exquisite traditional folk dress for dolls with the traditional decoration. Many prizes were won by her at the Royal Melbourne Show in the years I knew her.
She later married a widower and became Mrs. Elsa Williams, living at Gladysdale and teaching at a High School in Yarra Junction Victoria. Unfortunately I lost track of her, but I owe her a lot, as my mentor, to the wider world of textile arts."
[Pat Stevenson 14.3.98]
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Each of the patchwork pieces (there are several thousand present) are sewn together with very fine overcasting stitches. The quilt is entirely hand sewn. There is some evidence that templates from the hexagon pieces possibly blotting paper, remain in situ���The quilt is not padded or quilted. The lining is fine twill weave cotton printed in pink and pale purple. The design follows William Morris's 'Strawberry Thief design'." [NGA] 2075 x 1911mm
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