Quilt No.762PHM - Powerhouse Museum

Powerhouse Museum
Owner: 
Powerhouse Museum
Location: 
NSW Sydney
Maker
Maker: 
Elizabeth Garrett
Made in
AUSTRALIA VIC
Date: 
1901 - 1920
Description: 
"A double-sided patchwork quilt machine-pieced from plain and patterned rectangular woollen patches, each 130 x 200mm. The fabrics came from a tailor's swatchbook of men's, and possibly women.s, suiting samples and are mainly in tonings of olive green, brown, blue and cream. The two layers are bound together with a pieced border strip that forms the outside edge. There is no filling or quilting." [PHM]
2140 x 1660mm
History: 

The maker was Elizabeth Garrett , born Elizabeth Butler about 1870 and died 1946. It was made about 1910 at Box Hill Melbourne. The quilt was passed from Elizabeth Garrett to her daughter Elsie Garrett Hanna, and then to Elsie's daughter Mrs. Val Skinner of Mosman. Val Skinner gave the quilt to the Australian Costume and Textile Society and it subsequently came to the Powerhouse Museum when the ACTS collection was transferred there in 1983. It is used for research and exhibition purposes only.

Story: 

"The family landed at Portland and joined the gold rush; later they moved to James Street, Box Hill, where this quilt was made and later still moved to the bush outside Melbourne. Elizabeth was one of seven girls and one boy and was the dressmaker for the family. Elizabeth was married and had three children at the time the quilt was made, around 1910. Her first daughter Elsie was born in 1893."
"In January 1986 Val Skinner, the maker's granddaughter, said that everyone in the family used the quilt when they went camping and that later on, when they could afford to buy bed covers, it went under the bed." [PHM]

Elizabeth Garrett c.1910
Elizabeth Garrett c.1910

Related Quilts:

Fay Burgess
Hexagonal piece of patchwork made up of 9 rows of rosettes of hexagons in a wide variety of colours and patterns mainly in silks and velvets. It is incomplete. Backing papers are still in the outside rows and also basting threads. Hexagons are joined by fine whip stitching. It is unlined.
1370 x 1220mm
The Pioneer Women's Hut
Patchwork quilt made up of 100mm multi coloured squares in a variety of materials including cottons, synthetics, lurex, plain and printed. Each square has dacron padding and is then joined in strips and the strips joined. All hand sewn. The backing is blue synthetic whole cloth 60mm of which is returned to the front to form a border.
1500 x 1200mm
Brenda Bird
Suffolk Puff quilt made from a variety of scraps of dress materials including cottons and terylene. It is backed with white cotton sheeting and edged with a frill of white terylene. There is a matching pillow sham.
1740 x 1300 mm.
Christine Barnes
Cotton quilt with rosettes of hexagons. There is a centre hexagon with a surround of 6 hexagons in a contrasting pattern and then an outer row of 12 hexagons in a different pattern. Between each rosette is a single row of hexagons in a print common to the whole quilt. The materials are typical of the 60s period. There is a deep aqua border. It is machine quilted. The backing is cotton.
2515 x 1829mm
Tongarra Bicentennial Museum
Patchwork cot quilt top made from cotton hexagon patches, featuring a centre rosette with 7 rows of patches around it forming an elongated shape, with rosettes and patches randomly placed on the sides. Quilt has a border of triangles pieced to form squares. Cotton prints with over 50 different patterns. Colours are faded, with red and brown (may be faded green) and mostly pastels. Hand sewn using whip stitch. No padding or backing.
990 x 825mm
Kaniva District Historical Society
Patchwork quilt of hexagons in 'Grandmother's Flower Garden' pattern, consisting of a dark centre hexagon, a row of light patches, then a second row of dark patches in the same colour as the centre. Each group of patches or 'flower' is joined by white paths. Colours are predominantly red, blue, brown and pale or faded colours. Some fading; some dark colour fabrics have deteriorated. Backing. Hand sewn. Border of quilt and backing sewn edge to edge.
2236 x 1829mm