Quilt No.53RO - Robyn Oliver

Robyn Oliver
Owner: 
Robyn Oliver
Location: 
NSW South East
Maker
Maker: 
Unknown
Made in
ITALY
Patterms
Wholecloth, Quilting as major design element
Date: 
Unknown
Description: 
Wholecloth quilt, yellow sateen both sides. Hand quilted, geometric designs; centre square cross hatch, corner spaces filled with diagonal lines, border of 4 lines of parallel quilting. Flock padding visible in holes - said to be wool. 5 cms thick.
2290 x 1950mm
History: 

Purchased from the estate of Erice Zilliotto (born Barratto) Griffith NSW by the present owner.

Story: 

"Located on the user's bed when I first visited the house on behalf of Pioneer Park ���.. Not recognised as a handmade item while the owner's sister was visiting from Sweden, so no questions asked directly about the quilt. Was to have been acquired for Pioneer Park, but step daughters decided to donate their mother's quilt which was better provenanced. I assume this quilt has a similar background to other North Italian quilts referred to �" [Robyn Oliver]
Erice Zilliotto (nee Baratto) was born in 1913 in Cavaso, Treviso, Italy. She could machine knit by the time she was 11. Later she moved to Rome where she had a machine knitting business at home, employing 2 - 3 girls. She knitted for nuns at the Vatican. Around 1962 she came to Australia on holiday, met her husband in Wollongong, and they moved to Griffith. There she did knitting by private order, and produced some fine courtelle suits and dresses. Her mother, born in 1893, was a machine knitter. Her sister Bianca also learned to machine knit, not at home, but from the monastery.
[From notes supplied by Robyn Oliver 1998]

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